The compound women’s team of Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Muskan Kirar and Priya Gurjar assured India of a medal at the Archery World Championships in Yankton, USA by storming through to the final of their event in thrilling fashion.
Later in the day, Jyothi paired up with Abhishek Verma to reach the final of compound mixed team event as well, beating Korea’s Kim Yunhee and Kim Jongho 159-156.
Just like she did in the 2019 edition (bronze in individual and team), Jyothi assured herself of two medals at the prestigious event but improved the colours by reaching two gold medal matches. The Indian pair defeated archers from Russia, Netherlands and Korea along the way to book a spot in the final against top seeds Colombia on 24 September.
The women’s team trio defeated second seeds Great Britain in the quarterfinal and stunned hosts and third seeds USA in the semifinal with a terrific late comeback win to book their spot in the final. Like the mixed team event, this will be a India-Colombia affair too.
Colombia defeated France 234-220 in its semifinal match.
Qualification wrap for Indian archers at World Championships
Jyothi, Kirar and Gurjar – based on their individual scores of 684, 664, 646 – finished as seventh seeds in the qualification round. In their opening-round match, they comprehensively defeated Denmark. But in the subsequent matches, they needed sensational late fightbacks to win.
In both quarterfinal and semifinal, the trio trailed by two points before the final set of six arrows. In the match against Britain, they managed to tie things up and then shot a perfect 30 in the shootoff. In the match against USA, they overturned the deficit in regular time.
The men’s compound team of Abhishek Verma, Sangampreet Bisla and Rishabh Yadav won their first match against Italy but lost a high-scoring quarterfinal against Austria.
In the recurve men’s and women’s team events, India’s campaign came to a close at the round of 16 and quarterfinal stages respectively.
The recurve mixed team of Ankita Bhakat and Parth Salunkhe also post in the round of 16, going down 1-5 against top seeds An San and Kim Woojin of Korea.
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