Despite securing the country’s first-ever Olympic quota, Karma, the Bhutanese female archer has yet another hurdle to overcome. Karma, for now, is not eligible to represent Bhutan in the upcoming Olympic Games in Japan as she did not achieve the Minimum Qualification Score (MQS) of 605 on a world stage. However, vying to represent Bhutan, Karma hopes to achieve the required score by taking part in a competition acknowledged by the World Archery Federation during the weekend.
With the number of universality tickets being reduced from three per gender to two for the upcoming Olympic Games in Tokyo, there was no certainty that Bhutan would continue to receive a free quota.
However, 30-year-old Karma booked a place for Bhutan in the Olympic games by winning the country’s first-ever Olympic Quota in Bangkok, two years ago. Despite the achievement, Karma could not achieve the MQS of 605.
To achieve the MQS, Karma has been training rigorously at the Langjophakha archery range in Thimphu.
“I have been training for some time now. For now, it is not sure whether I will be able to achieve the required MQS. However, we have about three competitions starting 15th of this month. we also have competitions on 29th and one in June. I will do my best and try and achieve that MQS,” she said.
Going by her regular statistics of the training, Karma and her head coach have high hopes. Karma currently has the best score of 666.
“I could not achieve the MQS in 2019 as it was very windy that time. Weather conditions have a direct impact on our performances. But here it is not that windy as compared to other countries. For example, here I manage to score more than the required MQS. I recently set a personal record of 666 scores,” she added.
To help Karma achieve the required MQS, the Bhutan Archery Federation was supposed to send her to take part in the Archery World Cup Stage 2 to be held in Switzerland next month. However, the BAF recently decided not to send her given the worsening COVID-19 situation in the neighbouring countries.
Nevertheless, a separate tournament acknowledged by the World Archery Federation will be conducted by BAF in Thimphu to help Karma achieve the MQS.
And, if Karma is unable to achieve the required MQS in the upcoming three competitions, the archery federation will then have to send another BAF archer, Sonam Dema, who has already achieved the required MQS.
Since 1984, Bhutan has been taking part in various Olympic games through invitations and wild card entries.
Passang Dorji
