Dismal show by Indian recurve archers

Kolkata: Indian recurve archers shot wayward to fall like ninepins in the individual elimination round of the men`s and women`s section of the World Cup (Stage I) at Porec, Croatia Wednesday. The only exception was rookie Seema Verma, who lost to second-seeded South Korean Ki Bo Bae 0-6 in the quarterfinals.

Among the men, only Tarundeep Rai managed to enter the pre-quarterfinals where he lost to top seeded Korean Oh Jin Hyek 3-7. The worst was national men`s champion Viswash, who bowed out in the first round to Dutch opponent Tim Freriks, ranked way below him in this championship, 0-6. National women`s champion Deepika Kumari, ranked fifth and seeded in the third round, had the ignominy of losing 4-6 to a rival ranked 32 places below her, Katrina Lipiarska of Poland.Delhi Commonwealth Games gold medallist Rahul Banerjee, ranked ninth, was a second round victim, going down to 57th ranked Hugh MacDonald of Canada 2-6. Gold medallist at Porec in 2006 and 2009, Jayanta Talukdar, seeded 19th, produced a real shocker, falling 4-6 to 99th ranked unknown Bulgarian Vencislav Velikov. Two other Indian women, 11th ranked L. Bombayla Devi fell to 22nd ranked Maja Buskbjerg Jager of Denmark 3-7 in the third round and Rimil Buruily, qualifying at the 51st place, lost 2-6 to 62nd ranked Alison Williamson of Great Britain, a silver medalist at the Delhi CWG. In the compound qualifications, archers shot the new 50-metre round where the American archers set three new world records.In the men`s individual, Reo Wilde broke his own world record of 708 set on April 24 with 711 points. The compound men`s team established a new world record with 2,116 points, improving on its own mark of 2,112 set on April 8 in Phoenix. With a total of 2,083 points the compound women`s team eclipsed the 2,044 world record set by Italy at the European Grand Prix in Antalya in April. Chinna Raju Srither and national Champion Namita Yadav were the best Indian compound archers on view. Srither occupied the 36th slot with a total of 692 points. Namita was 19th with 675. Chittibomma Jignas (687), Isaiah Rajender Sanam (685) and Ritul Chatterjee (679) took the 57th, 60th and 71st spots respectively. The Indian team was ranked 12th with a total of 2,064. Jhano Hansdah was the second best Indian woman, placed at 20th with 675. Gagandeep Kaur was 26th with 673 and Bheighyabati Chanu was 55th with 646. The first three ensured India ended sixth with a total of 2,023. The Indian mixed team pair of Srither and Namita was placed 12th with 1,367. IANS