The Indian women’s recurve archery team shrugged off their shaky qualification showing and stormed into the final on Thursday, thereby assuring India of a medal at the World Cup Stage 3 in Paris.
Also impressing on the day was Jyothi Surekha Vennam who reached the final four in compound individual event, the only Indian to do so at the event.
Earlier in the day, the team of Deepika Kumari, Ankita Bhakat and Simranjeet Kaur will face third seeds Chinese Taipei in the final on Sunday.
Seeded 13th due to a below par outing in the qualifiers, India received a bye in to the second round where they beat Ukraine 5-1.
The trio were peerless in their quarterfinal clash against Great Britain winning 6-0 in three sets.
In the semi-final, India came up against a Turkish side high on confidence after upsetting the South Korean team that included triple Tokyo Olympics gold medallist An San 5-1 in the quarterfinal.
A tight first set went India’s way after Turkey shot a five, needing a perfect 10 to tie the set. India won the second set by a point before Turkey won the third set by the same margin.
Needing to win the fourth set to force a shootout, Turkey led 39-38 going into the last two shots only to shoot two 8s allowing India to tie the set 55-55 and clinch the match 5-3.
Deepika, who is featuring in her first World Cup of the season, told World Archery: “Last year we won the gold medal. No pressure. We are just focusing on ourselves and don’t think so much about the result. Today we shot very, very well.”
Germany won the bronze medal after beating Turkey 5-1 in the play-off match.
The men’s recurve team of Tarundeep Rai, Pravin Jadhav and Jayanta Talukdar crashed out in the second round by the narrowest of margins.
Down 4-2 in their match against Switzerland, India cameback to force a shootout by winning the fourth set. Both teams shot an identical score of 25 in the shootout but the Swiss clinched the match by virtue of having one of their arrows closest to the centre.
In compound eliminations later in the day, Jyothi – who is also featuring in her first World Cup of the season – shot a perfect 150 in the round of 32, before making her way to the semi-final. After seeding second with a brilliant qualification round that was just short of her personal best, the star compound archer seemed to have continued her fine form. She will be in semi-final action on Saturday and will shoot for a medal.
No other Indian woman made it beyond the round of 32 in the compound individual event. On the men’s side, only Abhishek Verma reached the quarterfinal before bowing out.
Screenshots courtesy World Archery