Indian archers Deepika Kumari and Abhishek Verma produced memorable performances in the ongoing Archery World Cup in Salt Lake City, USA by qualifying for the recurve women’s and compound men’s finals respectively.
Both of them will also have a chance of adding a bronze medal to their tally as they helped their respective mixed teams to reach the third place play-offs.
While India have won World Cup bronze medals this year in the compound team events, Kumari and Verma are the first to qualify for an individual event final. In fact, this is Kumari’s first gold medal match appearance since Shanghai, 2013 while Verma will be participating in his second World Cup gold medal match after previously reaching a final in 2015. Kumari is a four-time World Cup silver medallist and she will be up against Germany’s Michelle Kroppen in the final.
“I really needed this kind of boost in my life,” Kumari was quoted as saying by World Archery. “It’s been a really long time since the last time I made an individual gold medal match at a World Cup stage.”
In a thrilling semi-final against Gabriela Bayardo, the Indian archer came back from losing the first set to win 27-28, 28-22, 23-26, 28-24, 27-23 (6-4 on points).
“I was telling myself that I was capable of winning the match. I was focusing on my heartbeat, trying to stay as calm as possible and on staying positive the whole time. This gives me more confidence for upcoming competitions,” added Kumari.
After scoring 629/720 points in the ranking round, Kumari was placed fourth and therefore earned a bye to the third round of knockout stages. In the knockout rounds, she beat Erin Mickelberry (6-2), Ren Hayakawa (6-2), and Ana Maria Rendon (6-0) before her semi-final meeting with Bayardo. In the semifinal against Bayardo, Kumari fought back from four points down.
The other Indian in fray, Bombayla Devi Laishram lost in 3rd round 6-0 to Ana Paula Vazquez.
Verma faces world number 1 Hansen
In the men’s compound event, Verma will face world No 1 Stephan Hansen from Denmark on Saturday in the final.
Verma beat Akbarali Karabayev (147-148), Austin Taylor (144-147) and PJ Deloche (149-149, more Xs) before meeting Russia’s Anton Bulaev in the semis. With a spot in the final at stake, Verma hit perfect 30 in all five rounds to finish with 150 and defeated Bulaev, who managed 146.
“I tried to shoot perfect today and it worked,” Verma told World Archery. “I think the wind was better today than in qualification, but thanks to those conditions early this week I knew how to read the wind.”
“If I can shoot as I did today, no-one can stop me, not even Stephan,” he added.
In the mixed team events, the compound team of Abhishek Verma and Jyothi Surekha Vennam lost to Russia 149-152 in the semi-finals and will face USA in the bronze medal match.
The combination of Kumari and Atanu Das also faced a reversal in the recurve mixed team semifinals when they went down 4-5 against USA. The Indian pair came back strong from a 0-4 deficit to level the scores at 4-4 but could manage only 14 points in the last two arrows to lose the round 14-17. They will now face Chinese Taipei in the bronze medal play-off.