Indian women’s archery team wins recurve bronze at World Cup Stage 2

The Indian recurve women’s team bagged a bronze medal and Mohan Bhardwaj reached the semifinals of the compound men’s event at the Archery World Cup Stage 2 in Gwangju, South Korea, on May 19.

The fifth-ranked Indian women’s side—consisting of Ridhi Phor, Komalika Bari and Ankita Bhakat—beat Brazil 5-4 and Mexico 6-2 but lost to South Korea 6-2 in the semifinals.

The trio defeated second-ranked Chinese Taipei—including World Cup bronze medallist Kuo Tzu Ying, Olympics medallist Lei Chien-Ying and Worlds medallist Chiu Yi-Ching—6-2 (56-52, 54-51, 54-55, 55-54) to take the bronze medal.

The Indian recurve men’s team of Tarundeep Rai, Neeraj Chauhan and Jayanta Talukdar got a first-round bye and beat Turkey 5-4 (shoot off 28-27) before suffering a 6-2 defeat to France in the quarterfinal contest.

Mohan Bhardwaj shines

In compound men’s individual category, Mohan, ranked 42nd, got the better of Australians Patrick Coghlan 146-144 and Scott Brice 146-143, seventh-placed Slovakian Jozef Bosansky 149-145 and Korean Yang Jaewon 147-140 to reach the last-four and remain in contention for a medal. The Indian will face Austria’s Nico Wiener next.

Aman Saini lost to Denmark’s Mathias Fullerton 149-147 in the pre-quarterfinals. Third-placed Abhishek Verma was stunned in the second round, while Rajat Chauhan fell in the opening round.

In compound women’s individual event, Muskan Kirar exited in the pre-quarterfinals, losing to Korean Yunhee Kim 143-142. Priya Gurjar and Avneet Kaur could not advance past the second round, and Raginee Marko lost in the first round.