"I tried my best but it was not enough," were the first words from teenage archer Diya Siddique after her loss to Karyna Dziominskaya of Belarus in a tiebreaker in the women's individual recurve event at the Tokyo Olympics yesterday.

Although she had set her sights on posting a couple of victories in her first appearance in the Olympics, 17-year-old Diya faced elimination from the first round despite fighting brilliantly against 26-year-old Dziominskaya in windy conditions at Yumenoshima Park Archery field.

The 11th-grade student, ranked 155th in the world, forced the world's 31st-ranked archer into a shoot-off after holding on for a 5-5 set points draw (23-22, 25-26, 25-25, 25-27 and 27-25) before losing 10-9 in the single-arrow shoot-off.

Diya's inexperience on such a big stage may have played a role in her exit, with experience of only three big tournaments before she travelled to Japan. However, Diya's fighting approach has provided a glimpse into what could be a bright future for the BKSP student, who is ready to exploit the Olympic experience to get success in future.

"I gathered a lot of good experience in my first appearance in the Olympics because I watched many things here and learnt a lot, even in defeat. I had an opportunity to practice in windy conditions for the last few days and those conditions prevailed in today's match from which I gathered a lot of experience. I think such experiences will help me get rid of fear in future," Diya told The Daily Star.

Coach Martin Fredrick was also happy with Diya's performance in the windy conditions that caused many illustrious archers to bow out of the Olympics yesterday.

"The conditions were really complicated but Diya managed to play a 5-5 draw in a tight situation to take the match into a tiebreaker. She even had a nice shot in the tiebreaker but went down. I have nothing to say about her elimination," the German told The Daily Star. "I think Diya had a good campaign. Her best-ever score in the qualification round helped Bangladesh qualify for the mixed recurve team event. I think she is heading in the right direction."  

Asked about people's hope of an Olympic medal, the experienced coach said: "It is not 100 per cent realistic. We need to be realistic about the Olympic medal. First of all, we have to push Ruman Sana into the world's top 10 archers and then expect something from him."

Fredrick also set Bangladesh a new target of qualifying for the men's recurve team event at the 2024 Olympics in order to get more individuals into the Olympics as well as ready the women's recurve team, from which at least one woman can qualify for the Olympics directly.

Diya urged the concerned authorities to give them more opportunities to play international tournaments as well as to ensure an exclusive venue for uninterrupted training. "We have to concentrate more on practice because practice makes perfect. There is no alternative to hard work," Diya said, urging the government to allocate some incentive to meet their basic needs as well as inspire the next generation to take up archery.