Indian women's team finishes 4th in recurve archery

Deepika Kumari

Incheon, Sep 28 (IANS)

Indian women's team missed out on the bronze medal in the recurve archery event of the 17th Asian Games as they finished fourth at the Gyeyang Asiad Archery Field here Sunday.

The Indian team comprising Deepika Kumari, L. Bombayla Devi and Laxmirani Majhi suffered a narrow 4-5 loss to Japan.

The Indian trio lost the first set 53-54 but came back strongly to win the next two sets 58-55, 51-50 to lead 4-2.

But the Japanese team of Ren Hayakawa, Yuki Hayashi and Kaori Kawanaka won the fourth set 58-55 to equalise and take the match to a shoot off.

The Indian girls scored nine 10's and the Japanese had six.

In the shoot off, Deepika and Bombayla shot poorly, managing two 8's while the Japanese girls fired two 10's to take a four point lead.

In the final shot of the decider, Laxmirani scored a brilliant 10 and even though Japan's last competitor Kaori managed a poor 7, it was enough to give them the bronze medal.

After the highs of Saturday when the compound archery contingent earned four medals with the men's team of Abhishek Verma, Rajat Chauhan and Sandeep Kumar winning gold, while Abhishek taking the individual silver and the women's trio of Trisha Deb, Purvasha Sudhir Shende, Surekha Jyothi winning bronze along with Trisha's individual bronze, the much-vaunted recurve archers have failed to live up to the expectations.