Indian women archers outshone their male counterparts at the Archery World Cup Stage 3 in Antalya on Wednesday as both the recurve and the compound teams made it to the bronze medal matches of their respective events. While the recurve trio will now meet the fifth seeds Italy, their compound counterparts will face off with the 10th seeds Indonesia.
The recurve sixth seeds – Deepika Kumari, Laishram Bombayla Devi and Laxmirani Majhi – endured a tough pre-quarter-final round where they edged past Japan 5-4 with a 29-27 score in the shoot-off. They had another such tense encounter in the last-eight where they clawed their way back from 0-4 down to take the win 5-4 (24-23) over third seeds Germany.
But India’s brilliant run came to an end in the semi-finals as they went down 1-5 to second seeds Russia.
The compound women’s team of Purvasha Sudhir Shende, Divya Dhayal and Lily Chanu Paonam too proved to be giant-killers until they were narrowly edged by Russia in the semi-finals, 227-228.
They started with a 226-222 triumph over South Africa after which they caused a huge upset with a 227-221 victory over the top seeds Germany to progress into the last-four.
Disappointing performance from the men’s recurve team
In stark contrast, the Indian men’s recurve team’s performance left a lot to be desired. Seeded fourth, they had a relatively easy opener against the 11th seeds Brazil but they could not capitalize on it. The combine of Atanu Das, Jayanta Talukdar and Mangal Singh Champia, who will be vying for an Olympic berth on Thursday, slumped to a 3-5 defeat.
That certainly does not bode well for the team just a day ahead of the Olympic qualifier and they need to lift their performance several notches higher.
The men’s compound team did slightly better but it was not enough to make it to the semis. Rajat Chauhan, Abhishek Verma and Raju Chinna Srither toppled seventh seeds Turkey 232-230 in their opening round but could not continue it further as they bowed out 226-230 to higher-ranked USA in the quarters.
Deepika, Jayanta in the hunt in individual competition
Jayanta Talukdar joined Atanu Das in the third round of the individual competition while in the women’s section, Deepika, Bombayla Devi as well as Majhi made it that far today.
In the compound event, Abhishek Verma has a tough task next as he set up a meeting with the top seed Stephan Hansen. Besides him, Raju too reached the third round. Their women counterparts had a flawless display as all the three members of the compound team along with Swati Dudhwal secured themselves a berth in Round 3.
