World Cup stage two: Indian archers bow out in quarterfinals of compound team events
The Indian men’s and women’s compound teams crashed out of the Archery World Cup stage two with quarterfinal defeats here on Wednesday. The third seeded Indian women’s team comprising Jyoti Surekha Vennam, Aditi Swamy and Avneet Kaur went down 228-231 to the sixth seeded Turkish team. The fifth seeded team of Ojas Deotale, Rishabh Yadav and Prathamesh Javkar also crashed out of medal contention with a 231-234 loss to Mexico. World Cup stage one winners Ojas and Jyoti, however, remain in contention for a medal in the compound mixed team event.
Meanwhile, Indian women archers outperformed their male counterparts in the recurve qualification. Simranjit Kaur (648, seventh) rounded out the top 10, while Bhajan Kaur shot 638 to finish 17th. Veteran Ankita Bhakat, another member of the team, finished 24th with a score of 630. The Indian team secured the fourth position in the seeding order. The team got a bye in the first round and will play directly in the pre-quarterfinals. 21-year-old Dhiraj Bomdevara, who won his maiden World Cup medal with a bronze in the Stage I last month in Antalya, topped the Indian recurve men’s archers taking part in the qualifiers. The Army archer finished 13th with a score of 656. Former world champion Brady Allison finished on top with 670 points.
Other Indian archers disappointed. Country’s No. 1 archer and two-time Olympian Atanu Das could only manage a score of 638 to finish 44th, while youngster Neeraj Chauhan shot the same number to finish 47th. Experienced Tarundeep Rai did not make it to the team as he finished 57th with 631 points. The 39-year-old Rai, the 2010 Asian Games silver medallist, shot four sixes and five sevens in a poor performance. After failing to make it to the team, Rai will not have an easy road ahead in the individual event as he will face Tokyo Olympics double gold medalist Kim Ji-deok in the first round. The Indian men’s team finished eighth and got a bye in the first round. The team will face ninth seed Chinese Taipei in the second round.
