A 16-member archer contingent headed to Medellin (Columbia) for the Stage 3 of the Archery World Cup strarting from June 13.
A 16-member archer contingent headed to Medellin, Columbia for Stage 3 of the Archery World Cup. While there were many veterans who did fairly well, there were some major misses in the tournament. India’s premier archer Atanu Das was not in the middle of the action. He was replaced by Tushar Shelke. While in the women’s group, ace archer Jyothi Surekha Vennam won the Bronze medal in the compound team event. In the campaign in Singapore, team India won seven medals. In Medellin, India has won one gold and three bronze medals at the Archery World Cup 2023 stage 3.
The star of Medellin has to be the compound archer gold medalist Abhishek Verma. It was Abhishek’s third individual gold medal in the Archery World Cup and first since winning the top prize in Paris two years ago. The 33-year-old, Abhishek Verma was competing in his first World Cup of the year. In the final round, Abhishek defeated the 2019 world champion James Lutz of the USA 148-146 in a close match. “I’m very happy, I was remembering the good old days,” said Verma, a silver medallist at the 2014 Asian Games archery. “It doesn’t matter who your opponent is, I just wanted to focus on my shooting and give my best.”
Earlier, Abhishek Verma, seeded eighth, got the better of world No. 1 and top-seed Mike Schloesser of the Netherlands in a shoot-off after scores were tied 148-148 in the quarter-finals. He then beat Luccas Abreu of Brazil 148-143 in the semis to set up the final against No. 2 seed James Lutz. Abhishek will now join Prathamesh Jawkar at September’s finals in Mexico.
Read more: Baek Woong Ki and Sergio Pagni are India’s recurve and compound coaches
There were other notable performances as well put up by our archers which came in the group events. India won three Bronze medals in the team competitions. The Indian men’s compound team of Abhishek Verma, Ojas Pravin Deotale and Prathamesh Jawkar won the first-team medal. Whereas, the men’s recurve team, composed of Dhiraj Bommadevara, Mrinal Chauhan, and Tushar Shelke stood third. The second medal was won by the Indian women’s compound team comprising Aditi Swami, Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Parneet Kaur. The men’s recurve team of Dhiraj Bommadevara, Mrinal Chauhan and Tushar Shelke clinched a bronze medal as well.
However, no Indian archer has made it past the quarterfinal stage in the individual recurve archery men’s and women’s categories. Another disappointment for Team India was the bronze medal miss for Tushar Prabhakar Shelke and Bhajan Kaur. The duo were competing against the Chinese Taipei’s Wei Chun-Heng and Peng Chia-Mao, who came away 5-1 winners in the bronze-medal playoff. Although the Indians did not have their veterans in this campaign, the support that the team got from new faces has definitely made the coaches happy.
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