Thinley Namgay

Bhutan’s last hope in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics concluded with the elimination of archer Karma by Deepika Kumari of India in the women’s individual recurve archery in Japan Yesterday.

Karma lost three straight sets to Deepika Kumari. However, Karma maintained a competitive game with India’s number one.  

Karma’s performance was appreciable as the three sets’ scores were 26-23, 26-23 and 27-24. One of Karma’s arrows hit the 10 pointer ring in the third set, the highest. 

During the ranking round on July 23, Karma was ranked 56th out of 64 archers by securing 616 points. Deepika was ranked ninth that day. 

Karma had secured the minimum qualifying score (MQS) of 627 points to represent Bhutan in the  Olympics as a first full-fledged participant.

Swimmer Sangay Tenzin completed his 100m freestyle in 57.57 seconds (sec) on July 27.

Although Sangay couldn’t advance to the next round, his performance in the Olympics was better than in Thailand. 

Of the 70 swimmers from nine groups, 16 swimmers got selected. Sangay stood fifth out of seven members in his group.

On July 24, judoka Ngawang Namgyel was defeated by Mihrac Akkus from Turkey.  A 21-year-old Mihrac Akkus was the silver medalist at the 2020 Judo Grand Prix Tel, Israel. 

According to  Bhutan Judo Association (BJA), Ngawang lost by juji-gatame (arm bar). “His grip fighting was good and kept Akkus at bay foiling all of his attacks. He put on good positive judo and even attempted seoi nage (shoulder throw).”  

Ngawang lost in 2 minutes and 56 seconds.  

“Ngawang had the added disadvantage of facing a lefty. There is no senior lefty Judoka at the BJA. Training against a lefty has more or less not been done. Newaza(ground fighting)  has not been a big part of our training,” BJA stated.  

Shooter Lenchu Kunzang got eliminated in a 10m Air Rifle Women’s Qualification round on July 24. She scored 618.1 out of 654 points. Eight shooters proceeded for the next round. Lenchu was ranked 43rd out of 50 shooters.   

From the SAARC region, shooters from India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka also participated.  Lenchu was ahead of Nepalese and Sri Lanka’s shooter.

No shooter from the SAARC countries made it to the top eight. 

India’s Elavenil Valarivan (rank 16) and Apurvi Chandela (rank 36) scored 626.5 and 621.9 points, respectively.

Nepal’s Kalpana Pariyar (rank 46) grabbed 616.8 points, and  Sri Lanka’s Tehani Egodawela (rank 49) snatched  611.5 points.   

Lenchu’s performance was better than her MQS of 615.4 points in Qatar in 2019.   

Officials and participants from shooting, judo, and archery will leave Tokyo on July 30.

The second group comprising of swimming team and two BOC officials are expected to reach the country on August 16.

Edited by Jigme Wangchuk