Asian Archery Championships 2023: Indian women’s recurve and men’s compound teams win bronze medals
India will end the Asian championships without Olympic quotas as both men’s and women’s recurve teams failed to win gold medals.
Archery
The Indian women’s recurve and men’s compound teams won bronze medals at the Asian Archery Championships 2023 in Bangkok, Thailand on Wednesday.
Tisha Punia, Bhajan Kaur and Ankita Bhakat defeated Chinese Taipei 5-1 in the women’s recurve bronze medal match. Chinese Taipei was being led by Chien-Ying Lei, who was part of the team that claimed the bronze medal at the Rio 2016 Olympics.
Earlier in the semi-finals, the Indian trio lost 6-2 to the Republic of Korea. An San, the reigning Olympic champion in the women’s team, mixed and individual events, was leading the Korean team. The loss ended India’s chances of winning their first Paris 2024 Olympics quota in archery.
The Asian Archery Championships 2023 was the third Olympic qualifier for Indian recurve archers. Only the highest-placed team per gender earned Paris 2024 quotas.
The men’s team of Dhiraj Bommadevara, Pravin Jadhav and Olympian Tarundeep Rai was ousted in the quarter-finals after losing to Kazakhstan 5-4.
Indian archers could not secure Olympic quotas at the World Archery Championships and Asian Games earlier this year as well.
In the non-Olympic compound archery, the men’s team comprising 2018 Asian Games champion Abhishek Verma, Prathamesh Fuge and U21 world champion Priyansh defeated Chinese Taipei 29-28 in a shoot-off to secure the bronze medal after both teams were tied at 235 after four sets.
The Indian men’s compound team was second in the qualifying round and earned a bye to the quarter-finals where they defeated Vietnam 236-230. India entered the bronze medal match after losing to Kazakhstan 237-236 in the semi-finals.
Meanwhile, the women’s compound team of Aditi Swami, Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Parneet Kaur advanced to the gold medal match after defeating Thailand 228-217 in the semi-finals. The Indian trio will take on Chinese Taipei in the final on Thursday.
Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Parneet Kaur also marched into the final in the individual women’s compound and will go head-to-head in the gold medal match on Thursday. Aditi Swami topped the qualification but suffered an upset at the hands of Bonna Akter of Bangladesh in the third round.
However, Aditi Swami progressed to the final in the mixed-team event alongside Priyansh after getting the better of Kazakhstan’s Adel Zhexenbinova and Andrey Tyutyun 157-155 in the semi-finals. They will be up against Thailand’s Kanoknapus Kaewchomphu and Lertruangsilp Nawayut in the final on Thursday.
Abhishek Verma will aim for bronze in the men’s compound individual event after losing 148-146 to Andrey Tyutyun of Kazakhstan in the semi-finals.
The Asian Archery Championships will be followed by the Asian individual Olympic qualifiers for archery at the same venue, from November 9 to 12. The individual qualifiers will have two Olympic quotas on offer in each of the men’s and women’s recurve archery events.