World Cup archery: Indian teams make early exit

Kolkata, Aug 8

Indian archery hit the depths of despair in the ongoing World Cup archery (Stage IV) at Shanghai Saturday, as both the men and women teams made an unceremonious exit in the quarter finals, going down to lower ranked opponents.

With the Indian archers having also gone out of reckoning early in the individual recurve sections Friday, the country's campaign in the Cup has come to an end, according to information received here.

Having won two golds and a silver medal in the earlier three legs, the third-seeded men's team moved into the last eight with a facile victory over 14th-ranked Ukraine 217-207.

But the Indian trio of Rahul Banerjee, Mangal Singh Champia and Jayanta Talukdar allowed sixth seed Mexico to dominate the proceedings and win a semi-final berth with a 218-210 verdict.

Mexico, however, failed to go past Korea in the semis and will play Spain in the bronze medal play-off. Spain lost to France in the other semi-final.

The script was the same in the women's team event.

The Indian archers Rimil Buriuly, Pratima Boro and Dola Banerjee, seeded third, made short work of 14th-ranked Kazakhstan 213-200 but came a cropper against sixth-placed Italy in the quarters 215-219.

Italy eventually lost to Russian Federation while Korea beat China in the semifinals.

India could have gained an unexpected bronze medal but the Indian duo of Rimil Buriuly and Jayanta Talukdar lost to France 138-140 in a closely fought third-place play-off match in the mixed team event.

The Indian pair came up triumphant in a shoot off with Russian team following a tie in the qualification. But in the next match they lost to Korea 143-153 and moved to the third-place play-off.

(IANS)