Karma – Female Archer From Bhutan Qualified For Tokyo 2020 Olympic Quota
Karma has been specialising in Olympics-style archery since 2009.
(Source: Facebook/World Archery)
By Staff Reporter | Kuensel
Karma, a female archer, became the first Bhutanese athlete to qualify for an Olympic quota.
Currently ranked 467 in the world, she is one of the elite archers in the country today.
The 29-year-old archer won a spot in the recurve women’s archery for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics during the Asian continental qualification tournament held in Bangkok on 28 November 2019.
Six spots were also awarded to archers from India, Iran, Mongolia and Vietnam during the recent tournament.
Karma has been specialising in Olympics-style archery since 2009 and has taken part in more than a dozen international competitions, winning medals for the country. She made her international debut in 2012 at the London Olympics.
Source: Youtube/World Archery
Archery, also known as ‘Dha’ is Bhutan’s national sport. The country has competed in every Olympic archery tournament since the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984.
Karma impressed with her skills
However, it has always received universality invitations (these invitations are awarded to smaller or developing sporting nations to ensure diversity at the Games). Karma received one of these free tickets for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
With the number of universality tickets being reduced from three per gender at Rio 2016 to two at Tokyo 2020, there was no certainty that Bhutan would continue to receive a free quota.
Therefore the qualification tournament in Bangkok was critical and Karma did not fail to impress.
She defeated Rand Saad Al Mashhadani (Iraq) and Niloofar Alipoor (Iran) with a score of 6-2 and Waraporn Phutdee (Thailand) by 6-4.
“It’s a dream come true for me to be a part of the Olympics. Every athlete in the world dreams to be on the grandest stage of all and I’m very lucky to have gotten this opportunity,” said Karma.
This article first appeared in Kuensel and has been edited for Daily Bhutan.
