Archery World Cup: Women archers keep medal hopes alive

Indian women archers have ensured that the spotlight is on them rather than their male counterparts at the Archery World Cup in Turkey. Both the recurve and compound teams have kept the hopes of a medal alive, even as the men have turned out some disappointing performaces.

Here are a few highlights:

• The big news of the day was Lily Chanu Paonam, Divya Dhayal and Purvasha Shende, who are part of the compound team, defeating the top seeded Germans by six points in the quarter-final. However, the Russian team put a better show, halting our team en route to the semi-final. With the result now the eighth-seeds will face Indonesia on Saturday, in a match that will be played for the bronze medal.
• On the other hand, after exciting wins in round one and quarters, the recurve women's trio of Deepika Kumari, Bombayla Devi Laishram and Laxmirani Majhi was defeated by Russians 1-5 on Wednesday. However, they will also be targeting the bronze as they compete against the Italians on Sunday.
• In the women's recurve, Deepika, Bombayla and Laxmirani have given their best individual performances, making it to round three.
• In the compound individual Purvasha, Divya, Lily and Swati Dudhwal have qualified to the third round.
• While the men's team made a first-round exit, their compound team also could not manage to go beyond the last eight. The only silver lining being Abhishek Verma and Chinna Raju Srither winning their respective round two matches in the men's compound individual.

Also read: Must know: 5 things about Deepika Kumari

Meanwhile all eyes now are on India’s Olympic bound archer Deepika Kumari and her recurve partner Atanu Das, who displayed some quality sport on Tuesday, qualifying for the final after defeating the second seeded Turkish team 5-1 to enter the last eight.

Feature Image Credit: mediatimez.com