World Archery Championships 2017: Indian women’s compound team settles for silver

The Indian women’s compound team of Trisha Deb, Lily Chanu Paonam and Jyothi Surekha Vennam settled for the silver medal after going down to Colombia in the gold medal match at the 2017 World Archery Championships in Mexico City, Mexico on Saturday. The sixth seeded Indians succumbed to a 228-234 defeat at the hands of the fourth seeded Colombian team comprising world record holder Sara Lopez, Alejandra Usquiano and Nora Valdez.

This is India’s fifth medal from the World Championships and each of them has been a silver.

India was the only team to score a perfect 60 in the final that came in End 3. But other than that, their scores fluctuated while the Colombians were far more consistent which rewarded them with the gold medal.

The Indian trio started off with a 55 with their scores varying from 8 to 10. In contrast, the Colombian troika shot a 58 in the first end to take a 3-point lead.

The sixth seeds never recovered from that. Colombia finished the ends with scores of 58, 59, 59 and 58 for a total tally of 234. India’s scores were only 55, 58, 60 and 55 that took them to 228.

Under pressure in the fourth end, the Indian girls could produce a 10 only once in six attempts that washed out any hope of a comeback.

First compound team archery medal for India

Despite the loss, the Indians still created history as this was the first time India won any medal in the compound team archery section at the World Championships. India earned its only other compound archery medal from this prestigious tournament when Rajat Chauhan clinched a silver in 2015. It made him the first Indian to win an individual medal from the World Championships.

All the other three medals have been in recurve archery.

In 2005, the triumvirate of Tarundeep Rai, Gautam Singh and Jayanta Talukdar brought home India’s first World Championships medal when they bagged the men’s recurve team silver in Madrid.

Six years later, Deepika Kumari, Laishram Bombayla Devi and Chekrovolu Swuro too settled for the silver in women’s recurve team category. Deepika led the team to yet another silver in Copenhagen in 2015 when she joined forces with Rimil Buriuly and Laxmirani Majhi.