Olympics: Archer Reena's effort brings cheers to Indian camp

ATHENS, AUGUST 17 (PTI) India's Reena Kumari brought morning cheers to the Indian camp, moving into the pre-quarter final of the women's individual archery event with a hard-fought victory over Bhutan's Tshering Chhoden via shoot off in the Olympics here today.

The Indian girl, who seems to be improving with every outing since her poor 43rd place finish in the ranking comeptition, won the ding-dong battle 7-4 on shoot out after the two were tied 134-134 in the regulation rounds.

The 20-year-old Reena overcame a sloppy start to show the door to Chhoden, who failed to hold her nerves in the crucial shoot off at the historic Panathinaiko Stadium.

Reena scored a poor 19 points in her opening series to concede a huge 10-point lead to Chhoden, before raising her game by throwing her arrows with greater deal of consistency.
Another indicator of Reena's steady showing was the fact that even though she could not manage even a single 10-pointer, she made it through.

In contrast, Chhoden, who had earlier achieved the distinction of being the first woman archer to move to the knockout round from the Himalayan kingdom, boasted of two 10-pointers.

The Indian was in her best form in the fourth and last series when she picked up 25 and 26 points respectively while the 24-year-old Bhutanese paid dearly for a poor third series where she could manage just 16 points.

Reena, who had upset Kristine Esebua of Georgia in the first knockout round on Sunday, would now play Chi Yuan Shu of Chinese Taipei who got the better of Poland's Malgorzata Sobieraj 158-149 in another first round battle.