Indian men’s recurve team went down fighting to China, win silver at the Antalya World Cup

The Indian contingent claimed team silver and individual bronze on the concluding day of the Archery World Cup in Antalya, Turkey.

India’s men recurve team consisting of Olympian Atanu Das, Tarandeep Rai and Dhiraj Bommadevara went down fighting the Chinese team to settle for silver in a nail-biting gold medal match on the final day of the season’s first World Cup in Turkey.

Later in the day, Bommadevara gave a good account of himself by winning bronze in the individual men’s recurve event. The Indian contingent overall won four medals in the Turkish World Cup, including two gold medals in the compound (mixed team and individual).

The Indian men’s recurve team was tied 28-28 with the Chinese team. But lost the gold medal in the tie-break. The Chinese team had one arrow close to center of 10 to edge past the Indian side.

The Antalya World Cup turned out to be a happy hunting ground for Bommadevara. Having a world ranking of 256, he stunned archers ranked higher than him in the individual category. In the bronze medal match, he outplayed Kazakhstan’s Ilfat Abdullin 7-3, to win second medal for India on Sunday (April 23).

Great Britain’s 18 years old Penny Healy won the women’s recurve gold. Elina Idensen of Germany claimed silver, while China’s An Qixuan settled for silver. Moldova’s Dan Olaru took home the individual men's recurve trophy. Jean-Charles Valladont won silver.

The performance of the Indian contingent at the Antalya World Cup will be closely observed by the Archery Association of India (AAI).

“Individual performance in each of the three World Cups this year will enable us to finalize the team for the World Championships in August as well as Asian Games,” Pramod Chandurkar, secretary general of the AAI, said.

The World Championships in Berlin, Germany will be the first Paris Olympic Games qualification event.

“The Indian archery team performed up to expectations. We hope the archers will be able to sustain their efforts in coming months,” Sanjeeva Kumar Singh, India’s high performance director in archery, said.