India won silver in the men's recurve team event at the Archery World Championships after losing to China in the final in Netherlands on Sunday. Atanu Das, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav put up a spirited performance against the Chinese team of Wei Shaoxuan, Feng Hao and Ding Yiliang as they lost 6-2.
This was only the second time ever that India reached the gold medal final at the Worlds in this event. They had previously won a silver medal in the 2005 edition held in Madrid, in a team that comprised Rai, along with Jayanta Talukdar and Gautam Singh. They had lost to Korea 244-232 in the final that year. This was also the first time since 2014 that the Indian men's recurve team reached the final at any World event -- their last medal, a silver, coming at the Wroclaw Stage IV World Cup.
A day after securing an Olympic team quota in the men's recurve on Thursday by finishing as one of the top eight teams, World No. 17 India stunned World No. 5 Netherlands as they came from behind to win by one point (29-28) in the shoot-off, winning by a score of 5-4 in the semi-finals. In an impressive display of form, they had previously shocked World No. 2 Chinese Taipei in a near-perfect 6-0 win in the quarterfinals.
The Chinese team, ranked fourth in the world, had earlier stunned top seeds and World No. 1 Korea in a dominant 6-2 win in the semi-finals.
India concluded the tournament with three medals, including two bronzes from the compound section - women's team and Jyothi Surekha Vennam in the individual women's compound event.