Dhaka, Nov 14: Indian archers came up with good scores to be placed towards the top of the seedings list after the qualification round in both recurve and compound sections of the 22nd Asian Archery Championships in Dhaka, Bangladesh on Sunday.
Youth World Champion Ankita Bhakat in recurve and Abhishek Verma – who had done well in the World Championships in Yankton, USA in September – were both placed in the top five in Individual Competitions.
The Indian men’s and women’s teams qualified in second place in both the recurve and compound sections behind South Korea in the team competitions. The Indian pairs were also placed second in both compound and recurve mixed team competitions.
In the men’s recurve section, Kapil (675) was the best-placed Indian at fifth position. National champion Parth Salunke came in seventh with a score of 670 but hit 31 inner 10s as opposed to Pravin Jadhav’s 33.
The Indian team of Kapil, Pravin Jadhav, and Parth Salunke had a total tally of 2015 from 216 arrows and was placed second behind Korea, with a total of 2039.
Bangladesh (1996), Kazakhstan (1956) and Iran (1904) completed the top five in the nine-team competition.
In the women’s recurve competition, Youth World Championship medallist Ankita Bhakat finished fifth in the qualifying with a score of 657.
Madhu Vedwan also scored 657 but hit 10s and bulls-eye 24 times compared to Ankita’s 26 and was thus placed sixth. India’s Ridhi and Komolika Bari finished seventh and eighth, respectively.
The Indian archers did well in the compound section too.
In the men’s qualification round, Rishabh Yadav, who was third with 708, was the best-placed Indian, finishing ahead of Abhishek Verma, the World Cup gold-medallist, who was placed fourth with a score of 707.
Rishabh Yadav, Abhishek Verma, and Aman Saini will compete together in the compound men’s team event. They were placed second with a score of 2113, behind Korea who scored a Championship Record score of 2131.
In the women’s compound section. world championships silver-medallist Jyothi Vennam was the best Indian, finishing fourth with a total of 701.
In Recurve Mixed Team competition, the Indian pair of Ankita (657) and Kapil (675) was placed second with a total of 1332 behind the Korean combine of Ryoo Su-Jung (687) and Lee Seung-Hyun (680) who had a total of 1367. (IANS)
