The Indian Compound Cadet Women’s team rewrote a record at the World Youth Championships in Wroclaw, Poland, when they scored 2067 out of 2160 in the qualifying stage on Tuesday.
The Indian troika of Priya Gurjar, Ridhu Varshini and Parneet Kaur scored a whopping 128 10-pointers, including 53 shots in the bulls eye. Their efforts eclipsed the previous record by 22 points.
The feat helped them bag the number one seeding, with Turkey, USA, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Spain and Poland completing the eight seedings.
Read: India at Olympics 2021: Archery roundup - Disappointing outing despite a lot of promise
The Indian team will meet Poland in the quarter-finals on Friday, August 13.
A total of 537 archers from 58 countries will be taking part in the championships.
The World Youth Championships were initially scheduled to take place in Australia, but they were relocated due to the pandemic. Despite the fact that countries like South Korea and Chinese Taipei have opted out of the World Youth Championships, the tournament will not be losing its sheen.
India’s U-18 world champion Komalika Bari will be in action in the U-21 age group in Poland and will also lead the Indian senior squad at the World Archery Championships later this year.
India will be fighting for eight individual, four mixed team and eight team titles in Wroclaw.
Indian Olympic archers fail to make the cut for World Championships
Meanwhile, a new-look Indian archery team will be participating in next month’s Archery World Championships after all the archers who had competed in the Tokyo Olympics failed to make the cut.
World number one Deepika Kumari was a major disappointment as she finished fourth in the selection trials.
Also read: Teenage recurve archer Ridhi Phor to compete at next month's world championships in US
Komalika Bari will be leading the Indian team along with Ridhi Phor and Ankita Bhakat. The trio claimed the top-three spots.
Among the men, Punjab’s Aditya Chaudhary, 19-year-old Parth Salunkhe of Maharashtra and 2014 Youth Olympic bronze medalist Atul Verma grabbed the top three places. Olympians Tarundeep Rai finished ninth, Atanu Das finished 17th and Pravin Jadhav was placed 20th in the selection trials.