Indian eves settle for silver at World Archery Championships
The Indian women's recurve team squandered a two-set lead, going down to the top-seeded Russians in the shoot-off to bag a silver medal at the World Archery Championships on Sunday.
The Indian women's recurve team squandered a two-set lead, going down to the top-seeded Russians in the shoot-off to bag a silver medal at the World Archery Championships on Sunday.
The trio of Deepika Kumari, Laxmirani Majhi and Rimil Buriuly put pressure on the Russians opening up a 4-0 lead but could not wrap the issue as they lost the next two sets before going down in the shoot-off 27-28.
India thus picked their second silver in the ongoing World Archery Championships where compound archer Rajat Chauhan opened the account with a historic individual medal on Saturday.
This is India's best ever show in the World Archery Championships, where they are in the hunt for a third medal, and a double for Majhi, who will fight for a bronze in the individual recurve section later in the day.
Having grabbed an Olympic quota place for India in the women's section, the second-seeded Indian eves kept shuffling their order with former world number one Kumari either shooting first or last after her teammates Buriuly and Majhi as the Russians slowly recovered from a slow start.
The trio of Tuyana Dashidorzhieva, Ksenia Perova and Inna Stepanova had a series of 9s against India's three perfect 10s and one closest to the centre (X) to trail 54-56. The Indians maintained their lead to wrap the second set 4-0 but failed to wrap the issue in the third as Majhi and Buriuly shot seven each. Buriuly bounced back shooting a X while Kumari, shooting last, had a perfect 10 but it was not enough as they lost the third set by two points.
Under pressure in the fourth set, Kumari started the proceedings with a 9 in the first end only to be let down by Majhi and Buriuly again as they shot a poor 7 and 6 in the fourth and fifth ends respectively. Kumari once again shot a perfect 10 to end the sixth end and the fourth set but only to lose by four points as the Russians made a spirited comeback to level 4-4 to take the summit clash to the shoot-off.
In the ensuing shoot-off, Dashidorzhieva made a perfect 10 which was matched by Majhi while in the second end Perova shot 9 while Buriuly faltered again with an 8 to put pressure on Kumari again. Required to score a perfect 10 after Stepanova's 9, Kumari faltered under pressure and shot a 9 as India had to settle for a silver.
This was Kumari's second silver at the World Archery Championship as she had a similar feat in Turin 2011 along with Chekrovolu Swuro and Laishram Bombayla Devi.