PHUKET: Indian archers clinched two gold and six silver medals to finish second behind Bangladesh in the overall standings of the Asia Cup World Ranking Stage 1 tournament here on Saturday.
In a depleted field without South Korea, China, Chinese Taipei and Japan, India had stormed into seven out of 10 finals.
But they fell short on expectations and choked under pressure losing five finals, either in tie-breakers or by slender margins under overcast conditions.
Of the five losses, two were against neighbours Bangladesh, who finished atop the medal standings with three gold and one silver.
The two gold came in recurve men’s team and compound women’s individual section where it was an all-Indian affair.
Second seed Sakshi Chaudhary got the better of her 13th seeded teammate, Parneet Kaur, in a tight shoot-off finish after they were tied 140-all.
Both hit in the inner 10-ring but Sakshi edged out Parneet by shooting closer to the centre.
Parth Salunkhe, Rahul Nagarwal and Dhiraj B overcame from first round exits in the individual event to win the team gold in the recurve men’s section.
The trio were at their consistent best and picked up momentum as the match wore on to defeat their rivals from Kazakhstan 6-2 (53-53, 57-57, 56-55, 57-54).
India narrowly missed out a gold in the recurve women’s team event losing to Bangladesh in a tiebreaker finish 4-5 (48-47, 45-54, 56-60, 56-50, T: 27-28).
The top-seeded Indian trio of Ridhi Phor, Tisha Punia and Tanisha Verma squandered their lead after shooting a poor 45 in the second set.
Bangladesh seized control to bring it level before winning the tiebreaker 28-27.
Bangladesh once again turned out to be India’s nemesis in the recurve mixed team gold medal match.
Top-seeded duo of Ridhi Phor and Parth Salunkhe squandered a 3-1 lead to lose 3-5 (37-34, 37-37, 35-38, 36-37) against their Bangladeshi rivals to settle for a silver.
In the compound men’s individual final, second seed Rishabh Yadav shot a poor 126 to be thrashed by Mohammadsaleh Palizban of Iran by a massive 19 points.
India also missed the compound men’s and women’s team gold medals losing both the finals by slender one-point each.
The top-seeded trio of Prathamesh Jawkar, Yadav and Priyansh lost to their Kazakhstan opponents 232-233, while the women’s team — Sakshi Chaudhary, Aditi Swami and Pragati — went down to hosts Thailand 230-231.
India also lost both their bronze playoffs.
Tisha Punia went down to Malaysia’s Nur Ain Ayuni Fozi in recurve women’s individual section, while Jawkar lost against Seyed Kowsar of Iran in the men’s compound individual.
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