Indian archers’ Cup reign continues
Gwangju (South Korea), May 21: The Indian men’s compound archery team on Saturday came from behind to prevail over France by two points in an intense finish to win the gold medal in successive World Cup stages.
Unheralded Mohan Bhardwaj also shared the limelight as he stunned reigning world champion Nico Wiener en route to winning a dream World Cup individual silver medal as Indian compound archers outshone their much-fancied recurve teammates.
A day after the Olympic discipline recurve archers ended their campaign with a solitary bronze (in women’s team event), India bagged one gold, one silver and one bronze in the compound section on Saturday to end their World Cup Stage 2 campaign with five medals.
That the compound archers bagged one gold, one silver and two bronze from India’s total medal count of five summed up their dominance compared to the TOPS-supported Olympic discipline recurve archers.
India began the day with the men’s compound team dishing out a superb fightback to prevail over France 232-230 to win the gold medal.
In a repeat of the Stage 1 final, the fourth-seeded men’s team, comprising Abhishek Verma, Aman Saini and Rajat Chauhan, found itself trailing against its sixth-seed rivals in the first two ends.
But riding on an immaculate finish in the third end the trio sealed a 232-230 win over its French counterparts Adrien Gontier, Jean Philippe Boulch and Qentin
Baraer to win the World Cup Stage 2 gold.
In the last World Cup final at Antalya in April, the same Indian trio had defeated France by one-point.
“It’s our second consecutive win (this season). We were the best in Turkey and we proved it again. We are very happy about that,” Verma said.
“We know the strategy of France and we know their potential. We changed our strategy after the third round and it helped up,” Chauhan pointed out.