India's compound archers made merry at the Asian Archery Championships on Thursday as they finished with three gold medals and a bronze. Parneet Kaur pipped her more accomplished compatriot Jyothi Surekha Vennam to the title in the women's individual event, while the women's team and mixed team also won gold medals.
The day began with the Indian women's compound team of Jyothi, Aditi Gopichand Swami and Parneet beating their Chinese Taipei opponents 234-233 to win the Asian Championships. The win meant the Indian trio added yet another feather to their caps: they are now the world champions, Asian Games champions and the Asian Championships gold medallists.
World champion Aditi was back in action in a few minutes as she teamed up with U21 world champion Priyansh to beat their Thai opponents 156-151 and win gold in the compound mixed final. This was Aditi's second gold medal of the Asian Championships...within the hour.
That was followed by an all-Indian women's compound individual final between Jyothi and Parneet that went right down to the wire. The two were tied at a score of 145 points each and a shoot-off ensued, where Parneet edged past Jyothi to win 9-8 and take home the gold medal. Abhishek Verma added another medal to India's tally as he beat South Korea's Joo Jaehoon 147-146 to win bronze in the men's individual compound event.
The Indian men's compound team had won bronze on Wednesday. The trio of Abhishek, Prathamesh Fuge and Priyansh beat Chinese Taipei 29-28 in a shoot-off, after being tied at 235-235, to open India's tally at the Championships.
No Olympic quotas in recurve
While India's compound did well, there were no Olympic quotas on offer since compound archery is not part of the Olympic programme. Recurve archery, however, is part of the Olympics and the Indians were unable to snap up any of the quotas on offer.
None of the Indian recurve archers managed to reach the finals across disciplines and this was the third time that the archers had missed a chance to secure quota places after the World Championships and Asian Games earlier this year. The next qualifying event will be the third World Cup in June 2024. Thereafter, any places awarded on world rankings will use the list issued on June 24, 2024