Watch: Komalika Bari completes U18-U21 double, recurve teams win four golds at Archery Youth Worlds

India’s Komalika Bari clinched the Under-21 World Championship title on Sunday to add to the U-18 title she won in Madrid in 2019, becoming the second Indian woman to achieve that feat after Deepika Kumari.

Earlier, India’s Under-18 and Under-21 recurve archers won the men’s and mixed team gold medals at the Archery Youth World Championships in Wroclaw, Poland.

Bishal Changmai, the 16-year-old recurve archer, had a day to remember as he won three U18 medals. He was part of the gold medal-winning men’s and mixed team, before going on to clinch the individual bronze.

Later in the U21 category, India repeated the feats of the cadet archers as the men’s team as well as mixed team clinched gold medals, both coming at the expense of Spain.

In the recurve events, India thus finished with a total of five gold and three bronze medals. In the compound events on Saturday, India’s young archers won three gold, two silver and two bronze medals across U18 and U21 events. It took the country’s total to 15 medals.

India’s previous best show in the Youth World Championships was in the last edition at Madrid 2019 where they had bagged two gold and one bronze medal, reported PTI. The medal haul in Poland comes in the absence of teams from Korea, China and Chinese Taipei but the level of dominance from the Indian over the field was still laudable.

“We are on the right track for Paris Olympics. It was a fitting tribute to the nation on the 75th Independence day,” Dronacharaya Awardee team coach Sanjeeva Singh told PTI.

Saturday report: India bag U18 compound women’s, men’s & mixed team gold medals at Archery World Youth C’ships

U18 recurve events

In the U18 men’s recurve team final, top seeds Bishal Changmai, Vickey Ruhal, Amit Kumar overcame France in a closely contested final.

Changmai was in action soon for the second time and he was joined by Tamnna in the mixed team event final where the Indians defeated Japan for the second recurve gold medal of the day.

Both the men’s team and mixed team archers spoke about how they were proud to win the gold medal on Independence Day and see the national anthem played at the range in Wroclaw.

Earlier in the day, the women’s U18 team of Manjiri Alone, Avani and Tamnna clinched bronze medal by defeating Germany.

In the U18 individual recurve events, two Indians were in bronze medal contention.

First up, Manjiri Manoj Alone took on Netherlands’ Quinty Roeffen in the women’s event and the Indian made it two bronze medals for the day. Following up her team bronze, Alone defeated Roeffen in the battle for bronze.

To close things out in the recurve U18 action, Changmai stepped up to the range once again and put in a clinical performance to win the bronze medal match 5-3. Despite a few stray 8s, he had enough 10s through the match to make the difference.

U21 recurve events

The first defeat of the day for the Indian archers came in the Under-21 women’s team bronze medal match. Komalika Bari, Tanisha Verma and Tisha Punia lost 1-5 against Ukraine.

But soon after, the U21 men’s recurve team of Dhiraj Bommadevara, Aditya Choudhary and Parth Sushant Salunkhe clinched the gold medal with a come-from-behind 5-3 win against Spain.

In the mixed team event, the story was somewhat similar too. Parth Salunkhe, pairing with Komalika Bari, produced a brilliant comeback from 0-2, 1-3 down to win 5-3. The Indians shot five 10s out of the final eight arrows to clinch the last two sets. It was Salunkhe’s second gold medal of the day.

Providing a fitting end to India’s memorable showing at the championships, their best ever by some distance, was Komalika Bari. Down 0-2 and then 1-3 in the final against Canales of Spain, the Indian archer (already an integral part of the senior set-up) came up with three sets of 29 to win gold.

Exactly 10 years after Deepika completed the only other Indian double in Legnica, which is just one hour away from this venue in Poland, the Jamshedpur-born Tata Archery Academy archer emulated the feat of her senior teammate.

The 19-year-old Komalika, whose breakout performance came when she won her first individual title at the Youth Worlds in Madrid two years ago, held her nerve to overcome a 1-3 deficit to down Spain’’s Elia Canales 7-3 (26-27, 27-27, 29-27, 29-27, 29-28).

World number one Deepika is the only other Indian to win successive cadet and junior titles (Ogden 2009 and Legnica 2011).

The top-seeded cadet men’s team of Changmai, Amit and Ruhal defeated the French trio as they dropped just one set en route to clinching the gold 5-3 (53-50, 56-54, 55-57, 54-54).

Changmai, who stood third in the qualification round, later returned to bag his second gold when he paired up with Tamnna to win the mixed event 6-2 (36-33, 32-34, 35-31, 35-34).

Changmai ended up annexing a third medal when he overcame Zhangbyrbay Dauletkeldi of Kazakstan 6-4 (29-28, 27-29, 29-26, 27-27, 27-27) in an intense five-setter for the individual bronze.

For Tamnna, the mixed pair gold was her second medal as she had earlier in the morning won a bronze in the team event. Tamnna, Avani and Manjiri got the better of their German opponents 5-3 (53-50, 49-51, 52-52, 54-51) in a tight third-place match.

The 14-year-old Manjiri went on to clinch her second bronze when she defeated Roeffen of the Netherlands 6-4 (27-23, 26-27, 25-24, 22-28, 25-22).

Prior to Wroclaw, Indian archers have won a total of 26 medals (6 gold, 9 silver and 11 bronze) at the Youth World Archery Championships/Junior World (old name), while 15 medals came from this meet.

Here are the results from both the categories:

With PTI inputs