India eyeing three gold in Archery World Cup

Kolkata: Indian men`s and women`s recurve teams have stormed into the finals in the Archery World Cup Stage IV in Wroclaw, Poland.

According to information received here, the top seed Indian trio of Tarundeep Rai, Jayanta Talukdar and Atanu Das got the better of China 5-4, while the second seeded women`s team of Deepika Kumari, Bombayla Devi Laishram and Laxmirani Majhi trounced their opponents from Georgia 6-2 last night to make it to their respective finals. Both the Indian teams will lock horns against their respective opponents from Mexico in the team finals slated for Sunday. With the compound mixed pair of Abhishek Verma and Purvasha Shende already in the final, India have thus ensured at least three medals from the season-concluding meet. Besides, Deepika will vie for two bronze medals in the recurve individual and mixed pair where she`s been tagged with Talukdar. The men`s recurve semifinals went down the wire as the Indian trio came back from behind and held their nerves in the shoot-off to oust the fifth-seed Chinese trio of Xuesong Gu, Jialun Li and Zhiwei Yong. A poor seven in the last arrow of first end meant India trailed 0-2 but they bounced back in style shooting three perfect 10s and three 9s in the second end to level scores. It was again Chinese dominance as they hit the bull`s eye twice to take the third end before Indians brought the issue on an even keel (4-4) with three perfect 10s in the last end to take it to the shoot-off. India kept a steady head shooting two 10s, compared to one by China in the shoot-off to seal the issue. The Indian men`s team had earlier beaten the Dutchmen 5-4 in the quarterfinals and the Spanish team 5-1 in the last 16. The women`s team, however, did not have any trouble at all as they took a commanding 4-0 lead against the Georgian trio of Kristine Esebua, Yulia Lobzhenidze and Khatuna Narimanidze before sealing the win in style hitting perfect 10s and bull`s eye twice each from the six attempts. They had earlier got the better of Ukraine 5-4 in the quarterfinals and blanked Poland 6-0 in the last 16.