Puebla (Mexico), Apr 11 (PTI) Indian compound women’s trio of Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Madhura Dhamangaonkar and Pragati edged past USA 233-232 to clinch the gold medal at Archery World Cup Stage 1 here on Saturday.
The medal — India’s first in the season-opening meet — came as a saving grace as none of the recurve and men’s compound archers were on target and returned empty handed.
India have another medal in sight, with Ojas Deotale and Pragati set to compete for the compound mixed team bronze later in the day.
It came as a rude reality check for the Indians in a crucial year culminating with the Asian Games later this year, as none of the recurve participants — including former Olympians Tarundeep Rai, Atanu Das, Dhiraj Bommadevara and Deepika Kumari — could progress into the medal rounds.
Forget the medal rounds, the best they could manage were pre-quarterfinal finishes by Das and Dhiraj before bowing out to their respective opponents.
As a team, the men’s recurve side, which qualified as the 10th seed, made an opening-round exit, losing to Spain in straight sets.
The women’s recurve team did overcome their opening-round hurdle but crashed out in the quarterfinals against Turkey.
In the women’s individual recurve section, India’s most decorated archer Deepika lost in the second round, while Ankita Bhakat, Simranjeet Kaur and Kumkum Mohod advanced one round further before exiting in the third round.
Dhiraj and Kumkum, who had qualified as India’s mixed team, endured a disastrous outing as well, crashing out in their opening round after losing to Brazil.
The women’s team gold medal clash itself was a see-saw battle.
India conceded their opening-round lead and trailed in the second (114-117) and third ends (173-174). But the trio held their nerve, producing six perfect arrows in the final end to edge the USA by a solitary point.
The Indian trio had begun strongly, dropping just one point in the opening end for a score of 59, while their USA opponents ( Alexis Ruiz, Paige Pearce and Olivia Dean) managed 58. However, India slipped to just one 10 in the second end, returning 55 as the USA built a three-point cushion.
Under pressure, the Indians bounced back with a 59 in the third end to reduce the deficit and then maintained their charge to seal the final end and the gold.
Among men’s compound archers, Abhishek Verma and Ojas Deotale went the farthest, reaching the pre-quarterfinals, while Jyothi, a multiple World Cup gold medallist, bowed out in the quarterfinals of the women’s individual compound event. PTI TAP ATK
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