Stress has always got the better of world number one archer Deepika Kumari at the Olympics. (More Sports News)
But, thanks to an innovation by World Archery, her stress level, heart beat could be seen live on TV during the elimination rounds of the upcoming Tokyo Games at the Yumenoshima Park.
This is among the many firsts that the sport would witness during the Games beginning on Friday.
As per the heart beat monitoring innovation by Panasonic, the archers' heart rate would be measured by the cameras for the first time and would be beamed live to the spectators, a World Archery official said here.
Call it good or bad but the archers would not get to see the data as it would be only for the consumption of TV spectators.
"Camera will check changes in the colour and shape of the skin on the face caused by blood pumping. From this, we can determine the heart rate and from that the stress levels," the official told PTI.
"It would show stress level to the audience whether the archers' stress level goes high, heart beat before a deciding shot. It would be only for the individual matches."
The trials have been done by World Archery privately but never on the screen.
India's best medal prospect, Deepika, who is making her third straight Olympic appearance, had suffered a first-round elimination at the London Olympics, while at Rio five years ago, she had succumbed to pressure yet again with a straight-set loss in the third round.
Among other firsts, all the 64 archers in the qualifications would have their respective targets to maintain physical distance in the times of the pandemic.
"Normally during the qualifications, archers share one target but for the first time there would be 64 different targets -- one per archer in the session partly for COVID-19. Also it's easy to see their results," he said.
Archery will be the first sport to use live biometric data at the Olympics this time, the official added.
