Indian Men’s Recurve team won the silver medal in the World Archery Championship, held in the Netherlands. The Indian team lost to China in the Gold Medal match, despite leading the contest at one point of time.
After a dominating performance leading up to the final, the trio of Tarundeep Rai, Atanu Das and Pravin Jadhav were expected to fight for the maiden gold medal. They started well in the first half of the first set, leading 27-26 after first three arrows. But Chinese team came back to end the first set 53-53 as both teams took one point each.
And the team of Ding Yiliang, Wei Shaoxuan and Feng Hao punished India for the missed opportunity in the first set, with a dominating 58-51 performance in the second set. India tried to fight back with three 10s in the third set but China matches it with three 10s of their own and finished the third set 56-56.
Following the pattern of the match, Indians were again poor in the fourth set, finishing with three straight 8s and losing the set 52-56. China won the gold medal with the score of 6-2 (53-53, 58-51, 56-56, and 57-52). It was also China’s first ever gold medal in the recurve team category.
The recurve men's team podium at the 2019 @Hyundai World #Archery Championships.
? ?? China
? ?? India
? ?? Korea#wac2019 @archery2019— World Archery (@worldarchery) June 16, 2019
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Six Silvers for the Team
India men’s recurve team, having already booked their Olympic quota, had a good tournament from the start. They defeating Norway in the first round, Canada in the second, Chinese Taipei in the quarterfinal and Netherlands in the semi-finals.
After five silver medals in the competition so far, Indians were aiming for the first ever gold medal, only to finish with the sixth silver in the category. This was also the first final for the team after their silver medal in 2005 at Madrid.
“Feeling good and also bad. It was a big chance for us. We have won so many silver medals (at World Championships) but we have never won a gold. This time too, we could not able to convert this into a gold,” said veteran Tarundeep Rai, who was also the part of Madrid finals.
Indian archery team finished the World Championship with three medals, a silver and two bronze. Jyothi Surekha Vennam won the bronze medal in women’s individual compound event and the women’s team also finished third in the same event. India finished 6th in the medal table, while South Korea dominated the competition with 8 medals in total.
