Yecheon (South Korea): The Indian women’s compound team of Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Parneet Kaur, and Aditi Swami grabbed its third successive Archery World Cup gold medal, while the mixed team added a silver at the stage two event here on Saturday, May 25.
The world number one Indian compound team dominated Turkey’s Hazal Burun, Ayse Bera Suzer, and Begum Yuva right from the first end and sealed the gold without dropping a set, maintaining a healthy six-point margin (232-226) in a lopsided final.
For Jyothi, Parneet, and world champion Aditi, this completed a hat-trick of World Cup gold medals together.
They won the season-opening World Cup Stage 1 in Shanghai, beating Italy last month. They also ended with a gold at stage four of the event in Paris in August last year.
“It’s unbelievable, we are consistent in our performance, but during the matches, we just focus on shooting our best, so that we can get a medal for our team,” Aditi said about their consistency.
Asian Games champion Jyothi, however, failed to add a second gold to her kitty as she along with Priyansh squandered an opening round lead to go down to the USA’s Olivia Dean and Sawyer Sullivan by two points (155-153) in the compound mixed team final.
In the compound women’s team final, the second-seeded Indians began with three Xs (arrow near the centre) and dropped one point each in the next three arrows to edge out their fifth-seeded rivals by one point in the first round.
In the next round of six arrows, the Indians showed complete supremacy, drilling in five perfect 10s with two X, and one 9 to stretch their lead by four points at the halfway mark.
Turkey fought hard in the penultimate round, shooting four 10s with one X to match India’s score of 58. But that did not matter much as the Indians were ahead by four points going into the fourth and final end.
They sealed it by scoring yet another 58, which was studded with three 10s and one X.
“I was just thinking to shoot my best. I wanted to give my best even for the last arrow,” said Jyothi.
“We are feeling really great that we won the team gold medal here, and the weather was a little bit windy, but we managed to shoot our best,” Parneet said.
In a battle between the world’s top-two ranked nations in the compound mixed team final, the USA made a remarkable comeback to win the gold and maintain their supremacy.
Jyothi and Priyansh raced to a two-point lead by shooting a near-flawless 39 points out of a maximum of 40 in the first end.
But they struggled for consistency as Olivia and Sullivan bounced back, shooting 39 to edge out the Indians by two points and bring it level (76-all) at the halfway mark.
The No. 2 seed USA pair landed a perfect score of 40 in the third end to snatch a slender one-point lead as the Indians managed 39, dropping one point.
Jyothi and Priyansh needed to shoot a perfect 40 to force a shoot-off, but they managed a 38 as the USA pair scored 39 to seal the gold.
Indian archers failed to deliver a third medal in the compound category as youngster Prathamesh Fuge lost to world No. 1 Mike Schloesser of the Netherlands in a shoot-off of the bronze medal playoff.
The 21-year-old Fuge, who had upset world No. 6 and former world champion Nico Wiener of Austria in the quarterfinals, overcame a two-point deficit to make it 148-all and force a shoot-off.
Wiener sealed it with a 10 in the tiebreaker to deny the Indian a maiden World Cup individual medal.
Fuge earlier lost to world No. 7 James Lutz of the USA 143-148 in the compound men’s individual semifinal.
