Asian Archery Championships: India finish campaign with nine medals

Indian archers put on an impressive show at the 20th Asian Archery Championships held at the Bangabandhu Stadium in Dhaka, Bangladesh to finish their campaign with nine medals that included three gold, four silver and two bronze.

Stunning comeback by women’s compound team

On Thursday, the last day of the competition, the Indian women’s compound team made a stunning comeback from the jaws of defeat to snatch an improbable 230-227 win over the top seeds Korea. The trio of Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Trisha Deb and Parveena trailed the Korean triumvirate of So Chaewon, Choi Bomin and Song Yun Soo 114-118 at the end of the second set.

Even at the end of the third set, the score was 173-170 in favour of the top seeds. In a remarkable turn of events, the Koreans faltered in the final set whereas the Indian showed nerves of steel to shoot a flawless 60 out of 60 and grab the gold.

The Indian women came to this tournament after a historic campaign at the World Championships where they finished with a silver medal.

The men’s compound team of Abhishek Verma, Rajat Chauhan and Gurwinder Singh failed to emulate their women counterparts and went down 232-234 to Korea to settle for the silver. A day earlier, Verma had produced some fabulous shooting under pressure to take home the men’s individual compound gold with a win over Korea’s Kim Jongho.

In the other final of the day involving an Indian team, the Koreans once again had the last laugh. The trio of Atanu Das, Jayanta Talukdar and Yashdev succumbed to a 1-5 (56-56, 55-58, 53-55) defeat in the men’s recurve team final.

This was India’s only medal from the recurve section as they were completely outshone by their compound counterparts. India also grabbed a silver in the mixed compound team category where the duo of Abhishek Verma and Jyothi Surekha Vennam lost the final.

Surekha later also went on to add a bronze to India’s tally in the women’s individual compound section.

India finished second in the medals tally with a total of six medals that put them right behind Korea, who led the table with 14 medals.

Two Indians qualify for Youth Olympics

At the Youth Olympic Games qualifiers which were held at the same venue simultaneously, India bagged three more medals -- one gold, one silver and one bronze.

In an all-Indian cadet recurve final, 14-year-old Akash clinched the gold with a 6-4 win over Dhiraj Bommadevara. With the win, he bagged the boys’ quota for the Youth Olympics to be held in Argentina in 2018.

In the Girls’ cadet bronze play-off, 15-year-old Himani pummelled Mongolia’s Bayasgalan Badamjunai, 7-1 to clinch the quota.