Archery World Cup 2024: Indian women’s compound team completes hat-trick of gold medals

The Indian women’s compound team of Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Aditi Swami and Parneet Kaur won the gold medal at the Archery World Cup 2024 stage 3 in Antalya, Turkiye on Saturday.

The victory marked the Indian trio’s third straight gold medal in the Archery World Cup 2024 series.

After qualifying as the top seeds, the Indian women’s compound archery team got the better of the sixth-seeded Estonian team of Meeri-Marita Paas, Maris Tetsmann and Lisell Jaatma, a European Games gold medallist, 232-226 in the final.

The Indian archery team had beaten hosts Turkiye 234-227 in the semis after a 235-227 victory over El Salvador in the quarter-finals. India had topped the qualification round and received a bye in the first round.

Individual women’s compound world champion Aditi Swami, Asian Games champion Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Parneet Kaur also won the gold medals at Stages 1 and 2 of the Archery World Cup 2024 held in Shanghai and Yecheon, respectively.

India’s Priyansh, meanwhile, secured the silver medal in the individual men’s compound event after narrowly losing to the Netherlands’ Mike Schloesser by a 149-148 scoreline.

Trailing by a single point heading into the decisive set, the Indian archer had a chance to force a shoot-off when Schloesser dropped a point on his first shot. However, Priyansh could only shoot a nine on his second attempt and failed to seize the opening.

Priyansh, who had also won the silver at Stage 1 earlier this year, had defeated Denmark’s Mathias Fullerton 150-149 in the semi-finals.

Prathamesh Fuge and Asian Games gold medallist Abhishek Verma were knocked out in the third round of the men’s individual compound event.

Meanwhile, Priyansh and Jyothi Surekha Vennam, who won the mixed compound team silver in Yecheon, lost 156-154 to Italy in the quarter-finals in Antalya.

In the individual women’s compound event, Jyothi Surekha Vennam crashed out in the third round while Aditi Swami and Parneet Kaur suffered second-round exits.

The Indian men’s compound team of Prathamesh Fuge, Priyansh and Abhishek Verma qualified as the top seeds but lost the bronze medal match 236-235 to the French trio of Nicolas Girard, Jean Philippe Boulch and Adrien Gontier.

Dhiraj Bommadevara, who obtained a Paris 2024 archery quota for India last year, and Ankita Bhakat will compete in the men’s and women’s individual recurve semi-finals, respectively, on Sunday.

The women’s recurve team of Deepika Kumari, Bhajan Kaur and Ankita Bhakat lost the bronze medal match to Japan 6-0. The Indian men’s team of Tarundeep Rai, Pravin Jadhav and Dhiraj Bommadevara were eliminated in the second round.