Latest News on Bhavani Devi Biography, Profile, Photos and Videos Tokyo Olympics

Editor’s Note: For five years now, Indian athletes have been dreaming to make up for the disappointment of a two-medal haul in Rio. The span has been extraordinary, with COVID-19 having thrown their preparations – and the Olympics itself – off gear. However, in true Olympic spirit, the country’s finest sportspersons have battled form and uncertainty to put their best foot forward in what promises to be a Games like none other. In our latest series, we track the last two years’ performances of our athletes to give you a ready guide to their form leading into the biggest sporting spectacle of the world.

With the Tokyo Olympics fast approaching, Firstpost takes a quick look at Indian fencer Bhavani Devi, and charts her journey towards securing Olympic qualification:

Bhavani Devi made history earlier this year after sealing qualification for the Tokyo Olympics as the first fencer from India ever to book her ticket to the Olympic Games. Bhavani’s qualification came at the Budapest Sabre World Cup in March this year through the Adjusted Official Ranking (AOR) method.

Budapest World Championships

In July 2019, Bhavani Devi made it to the last-16 round of the Budapest World Fencing Championships. She fell to Romania’s Bianca Pascu by a 15-14 score, a margin of just one point preventing her from making it to the last-eight stage. Pascu was the eventual bronze winner at the event, losing to gold medallist Olga Kharlan.

In the preliminary pool round, Bhavani scored victories over Angelika Wator, Bandhita Srinualad, Julieta Toledo and Loredana Dima. But she also lost to Jisu Yoon and Pamela Brind’Amour.

In the Round of 64, she beat Toledo 15-7, and Canada’s Gabriella Page 15-14 in the next round before eventually running into Pascu.

Satellite success 

After her decent showing at the World Championships, Bhavani next competed at the Satellite events in Bulgaria’s Plovdiv, Belgium’s Gand and Iceland’s Reykjavik in the space of half a month.

At Plovdiv, she emerged from her preliminary pool stage unbeaten. She then blazed a path to the main round, beating Turkey’s Delfin Su Aydogan and Zehra Fatma Kose by identical 15-3 margins to make it to the quarters. There she ran into Azerbaijan’s Anna Bashta and fell 13-15. Bashta eventually won silver.

A week later, at the Satellite tournament held at Belgium’s Gand, Bhavani barged into the final, on the back of rampaging run where she was undefeated in the pool round, and then beat Aysel Ahadova, Sarah Hampson, Ayin Cakir and Martina Petraglia. Once again, the Azerbaijani fencer came out on top, beating Bhavani 15-10 in the final.

At the Satellite event in Reykjavik in October 2019, Bhavani made it to the semis, where she fell at the hands of American Francesca Russo with a 13-15 margin.

World Cup progress

At the Orleans World Cup in November 2019, where 210 fencers were in action in the women’s individual sabre event, Bhavani breezed through the preliminary pool stage, beating all six of her opponents without breaking into a sweat. She beat Hungary’s Valentina Nagy 5-2, Kazakhstan’s Anastassiya Gulik 5-3, Romania’s Andreea Lupu 5-1, Spain’s Maria Ventura 5-4, USA’s Francesca Russo 5-4 and France’s Margaux Rifkiss 5-1. In the Table of 64, she crossed blades with Poland’s Marta Puda. After a competitive fight, the Polish fencer emerged victorious with a 13-15 margin.

At the Salt Lake City World Cup in December 2019, Bhavani again beat all five of her preliminary pool opponents: Venezuela’s Patricia Contreras, South Korea’s Ha-Eun Kim, Nigeria’s Blessing Olaode, USA’s Aleksandra Shelton, and Spain’s Sandra Marcos. In the Pool of 64, she ran into South Korea’s Jiyeon Seo. The Indian fencer, ranked No 45 at the time, showed heart, but fell just short, losing 15-13 to the eventual bronze medallist from Korea, who was the World No 7.

She earned two points each from her performances at the Orleans World Cup and the Salt Lake City World Cup.

Montreal Grand Prix slip-up

At the Montreal Grand Prix in January 2020, Bhavani beat Canada’s Anastasiya Smirnova and Japan’s Marino Kimura in her opening pool matches. But then she lost all four of her remaining preliminary pool encounters against Mexico’s Julieta Toledo, Tunisia’s Amira Ben Chaabane, Poland’s Sylwia Matuszak and Great Britian’s Aliya Itzkowitz. The consecutive losses cut short her tournament at the preliminary pool stage itself.

Athens World Cup

At the Athens Sabre World Cup in March 2020, Bhavani had to fight her way through the Table of 128, after a bad showing in the preliminary pool where she beat Germany’s Liska Derkum and Nicaragua’s Fatima Largaespada, but lost her remaining three encounters.

She beat Marissa Ponich of Canada 15-11 to book a clash with Malgorzata Kozaczuk of Poland in the preliminary Table of 64. But her tournament ended after a 15-13 defeat at the hands of the Polish fencer.

Training during lockdown

Just before India shut down its airspace due to COVID-19 and enforced a nation-wide lockdown in March 2020, Bhavani left her training base in Italy’s Livorno to come home. For the first few months of lockdown, she trained on her terrace in Chennai by placing her long kitbag on two bricks and then placing a mask on the bag. The kitbag served as an opponent. Her coach, Nicola Zanotti, would watch her session on video calling apps.

“It is difficult (to train like this). I’m training against imaginary partners or a dummy partner made by using my kit bag, or by putting my mask on the wall. That’s how I’m doing target training. My coach has been giving me online training. I’m doing whatever I can do in this situation. But, of course, it is difficult without a sparring partner. We don’t have competitions right now. But when competitions start, I hope we have enough time for preparation. Right now, training with a partner is dangerous because of this situation,” Bhavani had told Firstpost in an interview.

Sealing Tokyo quota

When the lockdowns around the world started to ease and the sport of fencing restarted competitions, the Budapest World Cup in 2021 became Bhavani’s best bet to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics. In a rare instance, Bhavani was not the only Indian fencer competing at the Budapest World Cup, with World No 401 Vedika Khushi Ravana and World No 205 Diana Devi Thingujam also among the 186 fencers in the fray.

While her compatriots lost all of their preliminary pool contests, Bhavani won four of her five contests. She got a bye in her preliminary Table of 128 round, but had to face off against Hungary’s Renata Katona in the preliminary Table of 64 round. While the Indian fencer lost 10-15 to the Hungarian, she still made history by assuring herself a spot at the Tokyo Olympics, thus becoming the first fencer from India to do so.

Click here to check out form guides for the rest of the Indian contingent at the Tokyo Olympics 2020.