Butt of jokes after missing target in London, Bombayla eyes redemption

NEW DELHI: Laishram Bombayla Devi is an evolved archer. Four years ago, she was nursing a bruised ego and was the butt of the jokes after she completely missed the target face in her prequarterfinals loss to Mexico’s Roman Aida.

From being too casual — she was seen wearing a big smile after that glaring mistake — to being part of the team of Deepika Kumari and Chekrovolu Swuro which bowed out tamely at the Lord’s Cricket Ground ending India’s chances of winning their first Olympic medal, Bombayla has faced her share of criticism.

A day before that mistake in the individual event, India were already out of the team championships which was hyped as their best shot at a medal. It was not that their opponents Denmark had an exceptional day, the Indian women’s team which went into the tournament winning a silver medal at the World Championships in Turin, were actually way off colour. It wasn’t Bombayla’s doing alone. The entire team had a collective horror day at the field.

Looking back, Bombayla confessed that a few of the things went a bit too far. “I laughed about that arrow at first but then I felt bad. If you ask me, I still don’t know how I missed that arrow. I still remember how I composed myself and hit two tens back to back. Hitting those two arrows restored my confidence,” she said.

She added that the criticism didn’t bother her much. “I don’t pay heed to these things. It only affected me till that point. I am not a person that keeps deliberating on such things for long,” she added.

The experience in London has made her more determined to do well at the Rio Games, which will be her third attempt at glory. “London was four years ago. Much has changed since then. I have matured too. I’ll only say this that we will try and do better than last time. We have improved a lot. And we are more focused than last time,” she said NO HYPE The other thing that has changed since London Games is that the team hasn’t been talked about like last time. And Bombayla said this was good.

“We were written and talked about so much last time. Everyone wanted to talk to us, get us to talk to about how confident we were of winning… all of that adds to the pressure. This time though that much expectation is not there from us. And we have been pretty much away from the limelight. It is good to that we were left on our own,” she said.