Women Archers Keep India in Medal Hunt at World Cup

Recurve and compound women teams kept India in the medal hunt after advancing to the bronze playoffs but it turned out to be a disappointing day for the men's team in the third stage Archery World Cup on Wednesday.

The compound women's trio of Lily Chanu Paonam,Divya Dhayal and Purvasha Shende sprang the surprise of the day ousting top seed Germans by six points in the quarter-final. Seeded eighth, the Indian trio started off with three perfect 10s to lead 56-52 in the first set and grew stronger from there to wrap the issue 227-221.

They shot 13 perfect 10s including six Xs (closest to the centre) from 24 arrows en route to the semi-finals. However, Russia ended India's giant-killing spree with a narrow 228-227 win in last-four. The Indian trio will face their opponents from Indonesia in the bronze play-off on Saturday.

After posting thrilling wins in round one and quarters, the recurve women's trio of Deepika Kumari, Bombayla Devi Laishram and Laxmirani Majhi found the going tough today and lost to Russians 1-5.

They will compete against Italy in the bronze medal clash on Sunday. Trailing 0-4 in quarters, the Indians bounced back to level and won the match 5-4 in the shoot-off (24-23). Deepika, Bombayla and Laxmirani had a topsy-turvy first round outing against Japan as well when both the teams won one set each and were locked 4-4 before the Indians clinched it 5-4 with a 29-27 win in the shootoff.

However, it was a disappointing outing for the fourth seed Indian men's team who made a first round exit after being upset by 13th seed Brazilian trio of Bernardo Oliveira, Marcelo Costa and Daniel Rezende Xavier. Up 3-1 at the midway stage, Atanu Das, Jayanta Talukdar and Mangal Singh Champia put up an ordinary show in the third and fourth sets to suffer the setback.

The compound men's team of Rajat Chauhan, Abhishek Verma and China Raju Srither ended in last-eight, losing to their opponents from the USA 226-230. In the individual section earlier in the day, Talukdar joined Das in the men's recurve. In the women's recurve, Deepika, Bombayla and Laxmirani also kept their individual hopes alive making round three.

Abhishek Verma and Chinna Raju Srither won their respective round two matches in the men's compound individual, while Purvasha, Divya, Lily and Swati Dudhwal also qualified to the third round.