India's Atanu Das beat South Korea's Oh Jin-hyek 6-5 to enter the pre-quarterfinals of the men's individual archery event at the Tokyo Olympics on Thursday.
Oh, one of the most decorated archers of all time, winning a gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics. He was also part of the KOEM team that won the gold medal in the men's team event this year. He is also the first Korean male archer to win an individual Olympic gold medal.
Atanu was seeded 35th on the basis of men's individual rankings at the start of the Tokyo Games, while Oh was seeded third. Korea, an archery powerhouse, is three of the top four in the men's individual event, with Brady Ellison of the United States, who knocked out India's Pravin Jadhav from the competition on Wednesday, seeded second.
The opening proceedings in the match went the Korean way. In the first set, Oh scored two 9s and one 8 for a total of 26. Atanu with two 8's and one 9' lost the set by one point.
In the second set, Oh scored 10, 9 and 8 for 27, while Atanu hit three 9-second shots to split the honors in the set. Oh had then led the match 3–1. In the third set, both the archers again scored equal points to share the points, with Oh leading the match 4–2.
Oh's poor fourth set brought Atanu back into the match. The Korean scored 9, 7 and 6 for 22, while Atanu scored 10, 9 and 8 for 27 to level the match at 4-4 to keep his Tokyo Olympic campaign alive.
In the fifth set, both Oh and Atanu scored 10 for 28 and two 9. At 5-5, the match went into a single-arrow shoot-off. Oh scored 9 and Atanu scored 10 to seal the troubled win.
Atanu will face 46th seed Takaharu Furukawa of Japan in the pre-quarterfinals on Saturday. In the women's individual event, Deepika Kumari will take on Ksenia Perova of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) in the pre-quarterfinals on Friday.