After being eliminated from the second round of the men's individual recurve event at the Tokyo Olympics, Bangladesh's top archer Ruman Sana felt the urge to smash his bow shortly before returning to his senses and setting his sights on a gold medal at the 2028 Olympics.

Bangladesh's dream of winning an elusive medal at the Olympics this time hinged on Ruman, especially as the 26-year-old became the nation's second athlete to earn a direct ticket for the Olympics.

However, Ruman's journey ended in the second round as he suffered a 4-6 set points loss to Canada's Duenas Crispin, ranked 36th in the world.

Ruman, 25th in the world rankings, enjoyed a good start with a 7-3 set points win over Tom Hall of Great Britain in the first round, but the archer from Bangladesh Ansar crumbled in the second round despite getting off to a winning start.

He beat Crispin in the first set 26-25 before losing two straight sets to fall behind 2-4. The lad from Khulna bounced back to level things at 4-4 ahead of the fifth and final set, which went down to the final shot.

Ruman needed to hit the bullseye and score 10 to win the game and advance to the third round or square things up and force a tiebreaker by hitting a nine, but he could only manage eight and was eliminated.

"I can't forgive myself because I had a lot of opportunities to win the match. I felt like destroying my bows and arrows and leaving archery. I tried to put up my natural performance without any pressure but luck wasn't with me because the shots which hit 9s were supposed to hit 10," a frustrated Ruman told The Daily Star over the phone.

"There were many chances to win the match but I couldn't capitalise on any of them. I could have even taken the match into a tiebreak had I hit nine on the last shot, but I could only hit eight," said Ruman, who had targeted winning the first two rounds before possibly fighting it out against top-seed Kim Je Deok of South Korea, who was surprisingly beaten by 33rd-ranked Florian Unruh of Germany in the third round.

Before departing for Japan, Ruman had told The Daily Star that Bangladesh should not think of winning medals at the Olympics at the moment because even qualifying was a struggle. He added that when a lot of archers would qualify for the Olympics directly, then the dream of winning a medal would come true.

Replying to a query, Ruman said: "The people of country might have dreamt of me winning a medal in the Olympics because they saw my ability to win silver and bronze medals in the World Archery Championships and World Cup. But it is really naïve to think of an Olympic medal because it is a really hard job."

He also lamented the drop in form brought about by the pandemic.

"If I could have finished among the 10 archers in the Ranking round on the back of the form that I had in 2019, then I could have done something at the Olympics. However, my target is gold in the 2028 Olympics, so I'm going to play for the 2024 Olympics. From now, I have to toil harder, play more international tournaments and Games and improve my ability to realise my target."

The 26-year-old also urged the concerned authorities to increase facilities and incentives for archers so that the next generation is attracted and delivers their best on big stages like the Olympics.