Abhishek Verma wins compound gold at Paris Archery World Cup
The Indian archer beat world No. 5 American archer Kris Schaff via shoot-off in the final.
Abhishek Verma claimed India’s first medal at the Archery World Cup Stage 3 in Paris after winning the gold medal in the individual men’s compound event on Saturday.
Abhishek Verma, the current world No. 22, upset world No. 5 Kris Schaff of the USA in a crunch gold medal match shoot-off to win his prize.
The former two-time Asian champion, who qualified for the knockout stages seeded No. 11, started the day with a comfortable 146-138 semi-final win over ROC’s Anton Bulaev.
Abhishek had beaten Britain’s Matthew Wong, Italy’s Sergio Pagni, Puerto Rico’s Jean Pizarro and Denmark’s Martin Laursen in the earlier knockout rounds.
In the final gold medal match, Abhishek Verma went toe-to-toe with the highly-rated American and matched him 148-148 at the end of the regulation five rounds.
With the gold medal to be decided through a shoot-off, Kris Schaff cued up first and hit a nine. Abhishek Verma responded with a perfect 10 to win the top honour in the event.
This was the Indian compound archer’s second World Cup gold. He had earlier won a gold at Wroclaw, Poland, World Cup Stage 3 back in 2015.
Abhishek Verma was India’s last hope to snag a medal in compound archery in Paris.
On Sunday, Indian archers will be on the hunt for three more medals in women’s recurve team, recurve mixed team and women’s individual events. Tokyo-bound Deepika Kumari will be part of all three campaigns.