India's men's recurve team first won a gold medal in a World Cup in 2008, when Jayanta Talukdar, Rahul Banerjee, and Mangal Singh Champia defeated Malaysia 218-215.
Follow Us
India’s men’s recurve archery team, which included Atanu Das, Tarundeep Rai, and Dhiraj Bommadevara, advanced to the final of the Archery World Cup 2023 Stage 1 in Antalya, Turkey. On Sunday, April 23, they will be battling for the gold medal against China. This is the first World Cup final appearance by an Indian men’s recurve archery team in almost a decade. In this competition, India last won the gold medal 13 years ago.
The men’s recurve team qualified as the fourth seed and received a bye in the first round. In an exciting pre-quarterfinal match, they went on to defeat 13th-seed Japan, prevailing 5-4 after a 29-28 shootout. The Indian team had won the tiebreaker after both teams had been tied at 4-4 (49-52, 57-52, 54-51, 52-57) after four shooting sets. They did this by scoring two perfect 10s out of three attempts. The Indian archers then overcame the ninth-seeded Netherlands and the 12th-seeded Chinese Taipei to move to the final match against the second-seeded Chinese team. The Netherlands will compete against Slovenia in the bronze medal playoff.
The Indian men’s recurve team soon took a 4-0 lead in their match against Chinese Taipei and prevailed by 6-2 (55-54, 57-54, 51-53, 58-56), with four 10s and one X. India won their match against the Netherlands 6-2 (56-58, 57-53, 57-55, 56-54), who had earlier defeated Turkey, which included the current Olympic champion Mete Gazoz.
Read More-‘I hope I will win the gold’, says Olympic champion Mete Gazoz
India’s men’s recurve team first won a gold medal in a World Cup in 2008, when Jayanta Talukdar, Rahul Banerjee, and Mangal Singh Champia defeated Malaysia 218-215, earning their first-ever recurve men’s team gold in the competition. The Indian men’s recurve team has since added five gold medals to their World Cup achievements.
India’s most recent gold medal in the men’s recurve team event came in 2010 in Shanghai, where Tarundeep Rai, along with Jayanta Talukdar and Rahul Banerjee, defeated Japan 224-220 in the final. In 2014, the Indian team made it to the final twice (at Stage 2 in Medellin and Stage 4 in Wroclaw), however both times they had to settle for silver. In Medellin, the team fell in a tie-breaker to Korea, while in Wroclaw, Mexico won the gold medal match 5-3.
In the compound individual women’s event, India’s Jyothi Surekha Vennam advanced to the semi-final after defeating Denmark’s Tanja Gellenthien 147-142. Vennam is scheduled to compete against Britain’s Ella Gibson on April 22nd. On Tuesday, Vennam equaled the world record established by Sara Lopez at the Colombian National selections (2015) in the women’s compound event by scoring 713 points.
On the other hand, the women’s recurve team was ousted in the second round. Spain got the better of India women’s team which comprised Bhajan Kaur, Simranjeet Kaur, and Ankita Bhakat by 2-6 (45-47, 56-51, 50-52, 53-55). In the opening round, the women’s team had defeated Brazil 5-4 (56-53, 50-55, 52-54, 52-51, 24-19).
Read More-Jyothi Surekha Vennam equals the world record in the Archery World Cup
