The Deepika Kumari –led Indian women’s recurve team had to settle for the silver medal at the Archery World Cup Stage I in Shanghai as they went down to Chinese Taipei 2-6 (51-55, 55-53, 52-57, 53-58) in the gold medal match on Sunday. The men’s team, however, put up a brilliant performance to outclass Great Britain 6-0 (58-53, 57-55, 55-54) in the bronze medal contest.
The seventh-seeded Chinese Taipei team of Ya-Ting Tan, Chien-Ying Le, and Shih-Chia Lin, who had upset the archery heavyweights Korea in the quarter-finals, was right on target from the start. After they grabbed the opening set 55-51, the Indian trio of Kumari, Laishram Bombayla Devi, and Laxmirani Majhi managed to level the contest as they sealed the second set 55-53.
But the Taipei girls came up with four 10s in the third set which once again gave them the lead. The first half of the fourth set was competitive as the two teams were on par at 28 apiece. But Laishram Bombayla Devi’s 7 dashed all hopes of any Indian comeback as the Taipei girls summoned three consecutive 10s to pocket the fourth set 58-53 and with it, the gold medal.
Flawless performance by the men’s team
In contrast, the third-seeded Indian men’s team of Atanu Das, Jayanta Talukdar, and Mangal Singh Champia was in impeccable form as they thumped the ninth seeds Great Britain 6-0. Das will go for another medal later in the day as he pairs up with Kumari to face Korea in the mixed team bronze medal play-off.
This is an improvement from the Indian recurve teams from last year where they failed to win a single medal at the season’s opening World Cup in Shanghai and would surely provide the necessary boost ahead of the Olympics in August.
