Hangzhou, Oct 3: An exuberant Ojas Deotale set up an all-Indian final against the experienced Abhishek Verma in the men’s compound event to confirm the first-ever individual gold medal for the country in archery at the Asian Games here on Tuesday.
On a day when the recurve archers ended their campaign in individual sections following the painful exits of Atanu Das and Dhiraj Bommadevara, Deotale, Verma and seasoned Jyothi Surekha Vennam led the charge in compound section to assure India of three medals.
It also matched their best-ever haul of 2014 Asian Games in Incheon where they had won a gold, silver and bronze each.
Seventeen-year-old Aditi Swami, who is the reigning senior world champion, will fight for a bronze after losing to her ‘role model’ Jyothi in the women’s compound individual semifinal.
The Indian archers also remained in the hunt for a podium finish in six more team events – three each in recurve and compound – having already advanced into the quarterfinals on Monday.
Reigning world champion Deotale blazed his way to the men’s compound individual final with a perfect score of 150 in his four-point win over South Korean seventh-seed Yang Jaewon.
Veteran Verma evicted Korean top-seed Joo Jaehoon with a clinical 147-145 victory to set up an all-Indian gold medal clash and assure the county of a first ever top-two finish at the continental showpiece.
The same old story
It was a ‘same old story’ for the recurve archers as none of the Indians managed an Olympic individual quota.
A day after the women’s duo of Ankita Bhakat and Bhajan Kaur exited, it was the turn of veteran Das and rising youngster Dhiraj as both endured shoot-off defeats to go out in their respective quarterfinals.
Dhiraj, who shocked double Olympic gold medalist Kim Woojin in the World Cup Final less than a month back, was inconsistent and missed the target twice before losing to Kazakhstan’s Ilfat Abdullin 5-6 (30-29, 19-29,28-27, 16-15, 28-28) (9-10).
Enduring a poor start, Das went down to local lad Qi Xiangshuo (23-29, 29-29, 30-28, 29-27, 28-29) (10-10*) in a heartbreaking shoot-off which was also a tie. But Das missed out by a few millimeters as Qi’s arrow was closer to the centre. (PTI)
