Indian women’s archery team reaches World Cup final

Paris, June 25

Just days after failing to book an Olympics quota in the qualifier, the Indian women’s recurve archery team bounced back strongly to storm into the final of the World Cup Stage 3 here today.

The fancied trio of Deepika Kumari, Ankita Bhakat and Komalika Bari had lost to lower-ranked Colombia on Sunday to miss the Olympics team qualification, but today they just dropped a set before defeating sixth-ranked France 6-2 in the semifinals. The World Cup Stage 3 is not an Olympics qualifying tournament.

The trio will face Mexico on Sunday in a repeat of the first stage final. World No. 3 Deepika will be in the hunt for a hat-trick of gold medals. She had earlier advanced to the mixed pair final with husband Atanu Das. She is also in the semifinals of the recurve individual section. The second-seeded Indian women’s team, which got a bye in the second round, started off by beating 15th seed Spain in straight sets, before ousting seventh seed Turkey by an identical 6-0 margin in the quarterfinals.

In the last-four stage, the trio shot 57, 57, 54, 57 to beat the French team of Lisa Barbelin, Audrey Adiceom and Angeline Cohendet.

The men’s team of Das, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav lost its last-eight match to top seed Germany in a dramatic shoot-off. — PTI

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