India, July 24 -- The opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics may be scheduled to be held on Saturday but the Indian archers' campaign begins a day before that. Deepika Kumari, Ankita Bhakat, Bhajan Kaur, Pravin Jadhav, Tarundeep Rai and Dhiraj Bommadevara will be in action on Friday in the women's and men's individual ranking rounds.Archery will be held form July 25 to August 4 at the Paris Games. The ranking rounds on Thursday will be followed by women's team event on Sunday and the men's team event on Monday. This will be followed by the men's and women's individual knockout rounds from on July 30, 31 and August 1. The mixed team events are then scheduled to be held on August 2, followed by the women's and men's medal events on the subsequent two days. Let's take a look at the Indian archers who will be taking the field tomorrow.Deepika Kumari: The 30-year-old is making her fourth appearance at the Olympics and has been a constant fixture in Indian archery teams since the 2012 London Olympics.

Deepika took a break in late 2022 and early 2023 upon becoming a mother. She was in a race against time to make it to the Olympics but a strong showing upon her comeback helped her qualify for Paris. This included an extraordinary comeback to win silver at World Cup Stage-1 in Shanghai in April this year, less than 16 months after giving birth.Tarundeep Rai: Like Deepika, Tarundeep is making his fourth appearance at the Olympics. The 40-year-old has admitted that this Olympics is a "now-or-never situation". Tarundeep has two silver at the World Championships (2005, 2019), nine World Cup medals, including three gold, a silver and a bronze in Asian Games, two silver and a bronze in Asian Championships. The only trinket missing from his cabinet, is the one that has the Olympic rings engraved on it. The Sikkimese veteran was part of the Indian teams at the 2004 Athens, 2012 London and 2021 Tokyo Olympics. He exited in the first round in the individual event in Athens, and in the second round in both 2012 and 2021 editions. In Tokyo, he reached the quarterfinals of the men's team event.Pravin Jadhav: Apart from Deepika and Tarundeep, Jadhav has the most experience in the Olympics among Indian archers, having played at the Tokyo Olympics.

Jadhav finished above senior archers Atanu Das and Tarundeep in the ranking rounds and thus qualified for the knockouts where he lost to USA's Brady Ellison in the Round of 32. Jadhav later won silver at the Asian Archery Championship and was in the men's team alongwith Tarundeep and Dhiraj Bommadevara that won gold at the 2024 Archery World Cup in Shanghai. This was India's first World Cup gold medal in men's recurve team archery in 14 years.Dhiraj Bommadevara: 22-year-old Dhiraj Bommadevara is making his Olympic debut in Paris. Bommadevara made his international debut in 2017 and won gold at the World Archer Youth Championships in 2021. In 2023, he was part of men's team that won silver at the 2023 Asian Games. Bommadevara earlier won the men's team gold at the World Cup in Shanghai, India's first in 14 years.Ankita Bhakat: One of three archers in the Indian team to make their Olympic debut in Paris, 26-year-old Ankita Bhakat qualified for the Games quarterfinals of the Final World Archery Olympic Qualifier 2024. She shot to prominence when she won gold in the mixed team event at the 2017 youth archery World Championships. Ankita was also part of the Indian women's team that won bronze at the Asian Games.Bhajan Kaur: 18-year-old Bhajan Kaur sealed her place at the Paris Olympics by winning gold at the at the final Olympic qualifier in Antalya, Turkey last month. She had earlier been part of the women's team that won bronze at the 2023 Asian Games and also won bronze at the youth World Championships in 2023.

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