Deepika Kumari Led Women Archers Team Shine At Archery World Cup
Deepika Kumari Led Women Archers Team Shine At Archery World Cup
Deepika Kumari led a team of Indian women archers to clinch the recurve team gold following a 6-0 win against Mexico in the final as the team from India returned with 5 medals in the Archery Word Cup stage IV held at the Polish city of Wroclaw on August 10. Deepika won 3 of these medals as she a won a bronze each in the recurve women's individual event and recurve women's individual event and recurve mixed team pair event with partner Jayanta Talukdar.
The men's recurve team has clinched the silver medal after they lost to Mexico in a 3-5 battle in the final. Indian men's team comprising Abhishek Verma and Puvasha Shende have gained the silver medal following a tough fight with the Mexican team.
In the recurve team event for women, second-seeded Indian team comprising Deepika, Bombayla Devi as well as Laxmirani Majhi defeated Mexico without yielding a single set point. Deepika won 3 of the five 10s in the Indian team. "The match was not too difficult. Hopefully we can do the same at the Asian Games," Deepika has been quoted by the media as saying.
She also said that"This event has already raised our confidence. We have had a difficult season, but the hard work we have put in ahead of Incheon is starting to pay off." The victory over Mexico was following a defeat of the Georgian team for the Indian lady archers . They trounced their Georgian opponents 6-2 in a fight for the semi-finals.
As far as the men's recurve team was concerned, bull's eye proved to be difficult to hit in the final go for Tarundeep Rai, Atanu Das and Jayanta Talukdar. Mexico gained a 2-0 lead and they just could not be deterred after this. Mexican archer Juan Rene Serrano needed a red to win as the Indian team trailed by 2-4 in the fourth set. Juan Rene was the only right-handed archer in his team and he shot the last in the rotation for the victorious trio. This is the second World Cup stage team gold won by a team from Mexico. The other victory was at Medellin in 2013.
For the women's recurve individual event, Deepika beat Tatiana Segina of Russia to gain a 6-2 victory clinching the bronze medal. Deepika and Jayanta then took on the team from Belarus in the recurve mixed team pair event to win the bronze-medal match.
Deepika was the shining star that led the team. She is a Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games gold medallist and she secured 3 of the medals through sheer grit and talent. The team is now working hard for the 17th Asian Games to be held at Incheon in South Korea from September 19-October 4.
