Archery World Cup Stage 2: Indian women’s compound archery team strikes gold; mixed team settles for silver

The world number one Indian compound women’s 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.

FILE PHOTO: (From L-R) Parneet Kaur, Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Aditi Swami after winning compound women’s team gold medal at Archery World Cup Stage 1 in Shanghai. | Photo Credit: PTI

The Indian trio of Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Parneet Kaur and Aditi Swami grabbed their third successive Archery World Cup gold medal, beating Turkey 232-226 in a lopsided compound women’s team final at the stage two event here on Saturday.

The world number one Indian compound women’s 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.

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.

For Jyothi, Parneet and world champion Aditi this completed a hat-trick of World Cup gold medals together.

They had won the season opening World Cup Stage 1 in Shanghai, downing Italy last month and also ended last year with a gold at the stage four of the event in Paris.

“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.

In the compound women’s team final, the second seeded Indians began with three X (arrow near to 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 to shoot 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,” Jyothi said.

“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.

Prathamesh Fuge missed out on a medal in the compound individual category, falling to world No. 7 James Lutz in the semifinal before losing out on bronze to World No. 1 Mike Schloesser of the Netherlands.