Gone with the wind, women archers blame weather conditions

London: India`s erratic women archers crashed out of the team event today losing to Denmark by 210-211 margin at the Lord`s cricket ground.

Chekrovulo Swuro`s poor score of six in one of the rounds led to India`s ouster as one hard the familiar complaints from the Indian archers about the cross winds creating a problem. It will now be up to Deepika Kumari to provide a face-saving performance in the individual event as nothing much is expected from other archers. Team Manager Paresh Nath Mukherjee admitted that Swuro`s poor show was a factor. "She was totally out of sorts and didn`t perform well today. Even Deepika was erratic with only Bombayla Devi doing well," Mukherjee told the mediapersons. A disappointed Bombayla said,"We`re disappointed, but we had some bad luck. We tried our best but we lost by a point." On the sixes and sevens shot by the team, she said,"We wanted to shoot atleast 8s because with 8s, there would be no problems but when my partner (Swuro) hit the 6s, that created big problem." Bombayla said that although wind was a factor but she is confident about doing well in the individual event. "There was a little bit of wind - more than yesterday (Saturday), but I am confident for the individual round. I will try my best." Swuro, whose performance was the main reason for India`s ouster also lamented about strong wind changing the trajectory of the arrow. "I shot two sixes but I also shot 10s. The wind was a problem - it was shifting quite a bit and pushing the arrows." The scores when broken down individually showed Bombayla Devi as the best with 74, including three 10s, four 9s and one 8, out of India`s total of 210. Deepika with just one 10, had 69 and Swuro, who had two big lapses with 6s, managed only 67. The Danes were very consistent with nothing below 7 at any point and even that came only once. The archers, who had come as big hopes on the strength of Deepika Kumari`s World No 1 ranking and the women`s fine performance over the last year or so, has so far proved to a big disappointment. The Indian team had a slender edge in the first set at 52-51, but the Danes forged ahead in the second with 29 and 27 in their archers` two attempts in second set while Indians had only 24 and 27. In the third, the Danes added one more point to their lead, and despite the best effort of the Indians in the last set, the Danish trio held out to win 211-210. The Indians had 9 perfect 10s to the Danes` 6 perfect 10s, but the latter were more consistent and it carried them through. The Danes had finished eighth, while the Indians were ninth in the ranking round. PTI