Archery World Cup: Archerry on the cake

Yecheon (S Korea), May 25

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 II event here today.

The world No. 1 Indians 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 six-point margin in a 232-226 win in the final.

With the win, Jyothi, Parneet and world champion Aditi 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 IV of the event in Paris.

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.

The 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 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.

The former world champion sealed it with a 10 in the tiebreaker to deny the Indian a maiden World Cup individual medal.