Deepika Kumari will be the lone Indian representative at the two-day World Cup finals in Paris on September 21 and 22. The 19-year-old will be participating in her fourth straight finals in as many years, which is an Indian record.
The Ranchi-born recurve archer qualified for her first finals in 2010 at Edinburgh in Scotland where she finished fifth. Since then she has figured in two more finals in 2011 and 2012 and won silver medals.
This year she made it to Paris on the strength of the third rank (45 points) she managed from four-stage World Cup tournaments.
Deepika was the silver medallist at the Stage 1 in Shanghai, where she picked up 21 points. Then she got 12 points each from Medellin (Stage 3) and Wroclaw (Stage 4) which enabled her to make the quarterfinalists.
Deepika has bettered the previous record held by Jayanta Talukdar who figured in three World Cup finals, 2006, 2009 and 2010. He won a bronze medal in the last one.
Dola Banerjee is the only Indian to hold the unique record of winning gold in her first World Cup finals at Dubai in 2007.
Compound archer Rajat Chauhan missed a place in the Paris finals by two points. He was a quarterfinalist at Shanghai (13 points) and lost in the pre-quarterfinals at Antalya and Medellin which earned him five points each. Korean Min Lihong (25) qualified ahead of him.
