The Indian women's compound team of Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Trisha Deb and Muskan Kirar bagged a silver medal in the women's compound team event at the Archery World Cup in Berlin on Saturday. The team lost 228-229 to favourites the French trio of Sophie Dodemont, Amelie Sancenot and Sandra Herve in the final.
This was India's third silver medal in the World Cups in 2018 and their sixth medal overall. However, that tally soon increased to seven as Vennam added a bronze in the compound mixed team event with Abhishek Verma after defeating the Turkish duo of Yesim Bostan and Demir Elmaagacli 156-153 in the bronze medal match. Vennam and Verma won a medal in the mixed team event at each of the four World Cup stages this year.
Vennam had earlier won bronze in the compound mixed team event with Verma at the Shanghai, Antalya and Salt Lake World Cups. She and Kirar were also a part of the women's compound team which won silver at the Antalya World Cup.
While France finished the ends with scores of 57, 59, 58 and 55 to score a total of 229 points, India scored 59, 57, 53 and 59 to take their tally to 228. Even though India scored an impressive tally of 59 points in two of the four ends, they couldn't recover from an arrow which only scored 6 in the third end.
Top seed Turkey took bronze after beating Chinese Taipei 232-228 in the bronze medal match.
Verma has now won 10 World Cup medals overall, with five of them coming this year. This was India's fifth bronze in compound archery mixed team event at the World Cups since the start of 2017 -- the first one coming at last year's World Cup in Antalya where Verma had teamed up with the then 15-year-old Divya Dhayal. Verma had earlier won India's first-ever gold in the compound men's team event at the same event in 2017. He had also previously secured silver in the men's individual category at the 2015 World Cup Final in Mexico, after winning a gold in the same category at the Poland World Cup that year. He also won a silver medal in the compound individual event at the Salt Lake World Cup earlier this year.
India trailed by one point at the conclusion of the first end after they scored 39. They overcame that deficit by scoring a perfect 40 in the second end and led by three points as the Turkey duo only scored 36.
India scored a perfect 40 in the third end and extended the lead to four points as Turkey scored 39 again. The Indian duo scored 37 in the final round but Turkey could only score 38 as they eventually lost by three points.
"My sport is not that popular, I agree, but people need to realise that a medal is a medal, a World Cup win is a World Cup win, irrespective of what sport it may be in," Verma had told ESPN. "Our country is obsessed with the Olympics. They need to realise how big a World Cup or World Championship win can be."
This was the last of four World Cups this year and the last major archery event ahead of the Asian Games scheduled in August.