Indian women recurve team lose to Chinese Taipei in final, settle for silver at Archery World Cup

Deepika Kumari archerShanghai: Indian women recurve team lost to Chinese Taipei in the final and had to settle for silver in the first stage of Archery World Cup at the Yuanshen Stadium in Shanghai.

After a testy pair of sets from both teams, the Indian threat dissipated with Laxmirani Mahji shooting a five in the third end. Chinese Taipei responded with a 57 and a final end of 58, drilling home the point with four straight 10s to finish.

Indian women recurve team, including Deepika Kumari, Laishram Bombayla Devi and Laxmirani Majhi, had shocked top seed Germany 5-3 to set up a gold medal clash with Chinese Taipei, who despite only qualifying seventh, had moved through the brackets, defeating Mexico, Korea and Russia on the way.

India also remained in medal hunt in the men’s team and mixed pair in the recurve section but it was a forgettable outing for the compound archers who will return empty-handed after failing to progress to any medal round.

Meanwhile, in the mixed team contest, the experienced Indian pair of Deepika Kumari and Das Atanu beat the Korea rookies in a shootoff for the bronze medal. They got the better of much fancied Koreans 5-4 in a nerve-wracking shoot-off to end with another bronze.