Indian womens’
recurve and men’s compound archery teams secured bronze medals at the Asian
Archery Championships on Wednesday.
The team of Tisha
Punia, Bhajan Kaur and Ankita Bhakat beat Chinese Taipei by 5-1 in the bronze
medal match of the women’s recurve team. Chinese Taipei was led by 2016 Rio
Olympics bronze medalist Chien-Ying Lei, as per Olympics.com.
The Indian trio
has lost to South Korea by 6-2 in the semis, with the opposition led by current
Olympic champion An San. This loss ended India’s hopes for the first Paris 2024
Olympic quota in archery.
The event is the
third qualifier for the Paris Olympics for Indian archers. The top-placed team
per gender gets the Paris Olympic quotas.
The men’s team
consisting of Dhiraj Bommadevara, Pravin Jadhav and Olympian Tarundeep Rai was
eliminated in the quarter-finals after losing to Kazakhstan 5-4.
Indian archers
failed to bag Olympic quotas at the World Archery Championships and Asian Games
earlier this year.
In the non-Olympic
compound archery, the men’s team featuring 2018 Asian Games champion Abhishek
Verma, Prathamesh Fuge and U21 world champion Priyansh beat Chinese Taipei by
29-28 in a thrilling shoot-off to gain bronze after scores were tied at 235
after two sets.
The medal-winning
men’s compound trio was placed second in the qualifying round and got a bye
till the quarterfinals, where they beat Vietnam 236-230. In the semifinals,
India lost to Kazakhstan by 237-236 to enter in contention of a bronze medal.
The women’s
compound team of Aditi Swami, Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Parneet Kaur earned a
place in the gold medal match after beating Thailand by 228-217 in the
semifinals. India will take on Chinese Taipei in the final on Thursday.
Surekha and
Parneet also reached the finals of the individual women’s compound and will go
head-to-head in a title clash on Thursday. Aditi topped the qualification but
lost to Bangladesh’s Bonna Akter in a shocker during the third round.
Aditi however made
up for the loss by moving to the finals of the mixed-team event alongside
Priyansh by beating Kazakhstan’s Adel Zhexenbinova and Andrey Tyutyun 157-155
in the semi-finals. On Thursday, they will take on Thailand’s Kanoknapus
Kaewchomphu and Lertruangsilp Nawayut.
Abhishek Verma
will be aiming for bronze in the individual men’s compound event, after a loss
by 148-146 to Andrey Tyutyun of Kazakhstan in the semi-finals.
Asian Archery
Championships are being held from November 3 to 10.
ANI
