World Archery Championship : Women’s compound team won silver for the 8th time
India’s women’s and mixed doubles compound archery team had to be content with a silver medal at the World Championships here after losing in one-sided encounters against Colombia. India was challenging for its maiden gold medal at the World Championships. India is yet to win a gold medal but has made it to the podium the most 10 times. During this, India challenged in the final eight times and had to be content with the silver medal each time.
India’s star mixed doubles pair of Abhishek Verma and Jyoti Surekha Venam, who finished fourth in the rankings round, started with a one point lead but were followed by Colombia. The Indian pair eventually lost 150-154.
The seventh seeded women’s team of Jyothi, Muskan Kirar and Priya Gurjar lost 224-229 to the trio of Sara Lopez, Alejandra Uschiano and Nora Valdez.
The Colombian team, which topped the ranking round, hit 10 points 15 times and during this time they had five hits right in the middle.
After the first round both the teams were tied 58-58. The Indian women’s team then missed the opportunity to take the lead and the opposing team was ahead by one point.
After this the Colombian team did not give any chance to the Indian team and won the women’s title for the third time by hitting eight of the last 12 arrows on 10 points. This is the team’s first title since 2017.
India had a poor second round in mixed doubles where they lost a one-point lead twice with nine and once with six points and eventually lost the match by a margin of four points.
Second-ranked Daniel Munoz and Sara made a comeback after the first round to collect 40 out of 40 points in the third round to win the mixed doubles gold medal for the first time. Overall, the Colombian pair scored 10 points on 10 arrows out of 16 while the Indian players managed to score 10 points only eight times. Colombia continued to dominate compound archery and took its world championship gold medal tally to four.
India is also in the race for three medals in the individual compound category. Verma and Jyoti have to play their respective charter final matches on Saturday. Ankita Bhakat is the only archer left in the recurve category. She will enter the last eight matches on Sunday.
