Archery: Deepika Kumari stumbles at the last hurdle, wins silver in the World Cup final

A spirited performance by Deepika Kumari was not enough to get her a gold in women's recurve event at the Archery World Cup final in Tokyo. She lost out to world no.1 Ki Bo Bae of Korea 4-6 overall in a tight battle.

Deepika was looking set to win the Gold after she won the first two sets 26-23 and 27-25.

But the world no.1 and double Olympic champion from Korea never gave in and displayed tremendous courage and grit to fight back. She won the next two sets after the Indian hit 7s on her last shots in both the sets. The Korean won the two sets 28-24 and 26-23.

In the last set Deepika got off the blocks running and took an early lead hitting a couple of 9s while her competitor managed a 8 and a 9. All was dependent on the last arrow, quite literally.

Bae hit a 9 again while Kumari got a 7 yet again. Sevens in the last arrow cost the Indian a great deal in the end. She hit four 7s in the whole match while Ki Bo Bae did not hit a single 7, although she did misfire and hit a 6 off the very first arrow of the match. The Korean recovered well though while the Indian did not learn from her mistakes, losing out the deciding set 25-26.

Earlier in the day, Deepika beat Jennifer Nichols of the USA to reach the finals. She beat the American 6-2 overall to qualify.

Deepika took the first set in a rain-marred semi-final 28-24. Nichols fought back in the second one to win the set 26-25 and level the match.

The world no. 2 Indian though, never gave the American another opportunity and took the next two sets 26-25 and 28-27 in a tight contest.

Deepika had earlier also beaten Kanie Miki of Japan in the quarter-final 25-23, 26-26, 29-24 and 27-24, overall 7-1, in another rain-marred game.

After a disappointing London Olympics, Deepika would have been hoping for a good World Cup and this is perhaps a decent enough result for her.