Archery World Cup 2023 stage 4: India’s recurve teams win bronze medals

Paris [France], August 17 : The Indian men’s and women’s recurve teams won bronze medals to open India’s account at the Archery World Cup 2023 stage 4 in Paris, France, on Thursday.
While the men’s archery team got the better of Spain 6-2 in the bronze medal match, the women’s team beat Mexico in the shoot-off after scores were tied 4-4 at the end of the fourth set.
The Indian team in men’s recurve archery, comprising Tokyo Olympian Atanu Das, Dhiraj Bommadevara and Tushar Shelke, shot 2034 points in the qualifying round for second place behind the Republic of Korea. A total of 26 national teams competed in the men’s recurve team competition.
The top four teams got a bye in the first round. India stormed through Mexico 6-2 in the second round and handed seventh-seed Canada a 5-1 defeat in the quarter-finals.
However, India were blanked by Chinese Taipei 6-0 in the semi-finals and were pulled into the bronze medal match.
Later in the day, the Indian women’s recurve team of Bhajan Kaur, Ankita Bhakat and Simranjeet Kaur also clinched bronze. They came sixth in the 23-team qualifying event with a score of 1979 points.
The Indian women beat Japan 6-2 and Italy 5-1 on their way to the semi-finals but like the men’s team, their charge was also halted by Chinese Taipei, who won 6-0.
In individual recurve events, Dhiraj Bommadevara and Atanu Das came fourth and sixth in the men’s qualifying round and won their first round of elimination matches. The second round will be held on Friday.
Mrinal Chauhan and Tushar Shelke crashed out in the first round after finishing outside the top 50 in the qualifications.
In the women’s individual recurve, Bhajan Kaur was the best-placed Indian archer at 17th. She won her first elimination match and progressed to the second round along with Ankita Bhakat and Simranjeet Kaur. Prachi Singh bowed out in the first round.
In compound archery on Wednesday, the Indian men’s and women’s teams progressed to the gold medal matches. The men’s team of Ojas Pravin Deotale, Prathamesh Jawkar and Abhishek Verma will take on the USA on Saturday while Aditi Gopichand Swami, Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Parneet Kaur will be up against Mexico.
Individual compound archery events saw 17-year-old Aditi Gopichand Swami, the youngest women’s world champion in archery history and 21-year-old Ojas Pravin Deotale, the men’s world champion, claim first and second place in their respective qualifying events.
The individual medal rounds in compound archery will begin on Saturday while for recurve archers, the medal rounds will be on Sunday.
There are no direct Olympic quota places on offer in Paris but the World Cup will offer ranking points to recurve archers. The ranking points will be used to determine two team quotas for both men and women at the Paris 2024 Olympics.