It has been a day to remember for Indian archery’s golden girl Deepika Kumari at the Archery World Cup Stage I in Shanghai on Wednesday. After equalling Olympic champion Ki Bo Bae’s world record in the qualification rounds of the individual women’s recurve event, she joined forces with Atanu Das to reach the bronze medal play-off in the recurve mixed team competition.
The 21-year-old former World No. 1 was right on target from the very beginning and finished atop the qualifying list with a score of 686 out of 720. That is exactly the total that the Korean superstar Bae had amassed at the Universiade in Gwangju last year.
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Here is the tweet from World Archery confirming Deepika’s feat.
She carried on her impressive form into the mixed event where she and the 12th ranked Atanu were given the top seeding. They blanked Great Britain 6-0 before moving past Turkey 5-3 into the semi-finals.
In the last-four, the Indians were beaten by fourth seeds Chinese Taipei 3-5. They will now meet Korea for the bronze play-off on Sunday.
Apart from Kumari, the other Indians in the recurve women’s qualification did not fare well as Laishram Bombayla Devi was ranked 34th while Laxmirani Majhi was placed at 45th and Rimil Buriuly 75th. The women’s team got the fourth ranking and will begin their campaign against USA.
On the men’s side, Jayanta Talukdar achieved the same total of 671 as Atanu and was placed 13th. Mangal Singh Champia was 20th while Rahul Banerjee finished a distant 42nd.
With three Indians managing a top-20 ranking, the men’s team secured the third place in the qualification round.
Lily Chanu secures 10th place; Abhishek Verma 17th
Over in the compound archery section, Asian Games gold medallist Abhishek Verma grabbed the 17th position to be the best performer for India in his category. Chinna Raju Srither was 23rd while Gurwinder Singh was 31st and Sarveesh Pareek 57th.
The seventh-seeded Indian trio of Verma, Srither and Singh will take on the 10th seeds Iran in the team competition.
Their women counterparts secured the sixth place in team qualification and will be squaring off against the 11th seeds Malaysia.
With 695 points, Paonam Lily Chanu emerged as the 10th best in individual qualification. Among her teammates, Purvasha Sudhir Shende was 31st while Khushbu Dhayal was 36th. Prabhjot Kaur managed a 40th position only.
The individual matches will be played on Thursday while the team matches will follow on Friday. The medal rounds in compound and recurve are scheduled on Saturday and Sunday respectively.
