Defending champion Sukhmani Babrekar defied windy conditions to aggregate 655 points and lead the men’s recurve ranking round on the opening day of the National archery championships here on Sunday.
The 19-year-old Maharashtra archer, a World youth championships silver medallist, gathered 325 points in the first round of shooting for 70m and followed it up with 330 to stay ahead of accomplished names like Pravin Jadhav (653) and Tarundeep Rai (652) of Services.
Olympian Atanu Das also recorded 325 in his first round but slipped in the second to collect 317 and take the ninth spot.
Among other experienced archers, Vishwash (645) was fifth, Sukhchain Singh (644) seventh and Mangal Singh Champia (640) was 12th.
Olympian L. Bombayla Devi accumulated 642 points to emerge as the top ranked woman recurve archer for the individual elimination round. Bombayla, who trained with the Railways team in Kolkata, scored 329 in the opening round before managing 313 points in the second 70m round due to unpredictable wind.
Ankita Bhakat (639) and Preeti (628) took the next two spots.
