Women’s team completes golden hat-trick

PTI

Antalya, June 22

The Indian compound women’s archery team of Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Aditi Swami and Parneet Kaur continued its imperious form this season, securing a hat-trick of World Cup gold medals with a win over Estonia.

Priyansh, though, settled for a silver after narrowly losing the men’s final to world No. 1 Mike Schloesser.

Entering the final as the top-seeded team, the women’s trio displayed its prowess by defeating Estonia’s Lisell Jaatma, Meeri-Marita Paas and Maris Tetsmann 232-229 in a one-sided final of the Stage 3 event. The women’s compound team has been invincible this season, winning all three World Cup stages. They had secured gold at Stage 1 in Shanghai and Stage 2 in Yecheon, South Korea.

Later in the day, rising compound archer Priyansh failed to defeat Dutch heavyweight Schloesser for a second time this season and settled for a runner-up finish.

Priyansh, who showed flawless shooting to enter the final, dropped a point in the opening set and could not overcome the deficit as Schloesser shot a series of 10s to clinch the match 149-148. It was in the final set that the Dutch archer dropped a point and Priyansh needed a perfect 30 to clinch the gold, but the Indian missed one point to finish second best.

In the semifinal, the 21-year-old landed all his 15 arrows in the perfect-10 ring to knock out world No. 2 Mathias Fullerton by one point. In Yecheon, the Danish archer had eliminated Priyansh in the pre-quarters in a tight shoot-off finish.

This was Priyansh’s second World Cup silver. At the Shanghai event, Priyansh had lost to world No. 8 Nico Wiener of Austria 147-150 in the final.

India will be aiming for three medals in the recurve finals on Sunday. Ankita Bhakat and Dhiraj Bommadevara are in the hunt for two medals, having advanced to their respective individual semifinals. The mixed team of Dhiraj and Bhajan Kaur will take on the Mexican team in the bronze medal playoff.