|
Talukdar saves the final day with bronze medal
When it looked beach and breeze would deny India any medal on the final day of the stage III World Cup archery at Antalya, Indian ace Jayanta Talukdar produced a bronze medal victory in the individual recurve section on June 7.
The sixth-seeded Indian overcame two ends of poor shooting to subdue 24th ranked Italian Amedeo Tonelli 106-101 that enabled India to end the tournament with one silver (men's recurve team) and two bronze medals (Talukdar and women's recurve team).
The two Indian giant-killers, Kapil and Rimil Biruly, who eliminated reigning world champions Im Dong Hyun of Korea and Natalia Valeeva of Italy respectively in the earlier rounds of the recurve division, came a cropper in the quarterfinals. Kapil lost to Tonelli 102-108 and Rimil went out to fifth-ranked Ruyu Ouyang of China 104-109.
Talukdar progressed to semifinals by beating 14th seeded Bair Badenov of Russia 109-105 but lost to eventual gold medallist Simon Terry of Great Britain 107-112.
Talukdar's bronze medal winning victory earned him 18 points from the third leg to his 27 accumulated from the first two legs. At the end of the tournament, the Indian led the field with 45 points. Close behind him was Simon Terry with 43 points heading to the fourth leg at Shanghai (4-9 August).
Top four achers in terms of points earned from each category will qualify for the Copenhagen World Cup finals on September 26, 2009.
Talukdar last qualified for the World Cup finals was in 2006 in which he finished last of the four archers.
A year later Dola Banerjee qualified to the finals and eventually won it to become the first Indian to achieve the feat!
The Indian recurve pair of Rahul Banerjee and Reena Kumari, who made it to the knockout stage of the mixed pair event, lost to the top-seeded Korean pair of Im Dong Hyun and Ji Ye Kwak 130-141 and against lost 140-147 to the Russian pair in the play off for bronze medal.
|
Korea denies India third consecutive gold medal
The Indian men recurve team's dream run came to an end against the mighty Korean team. The world champion proved a better side in windy conditions to win the gold medal thus denying India from winning the third consecutive gold medal in the stage III of the World Cup archery meet at Antalya on Saturday.
Korea won the contest 225-221 to relegate India to the silver place.
Indian women did not slip this time as they overpowered Japan 211-201 to win the bronze medal.
Rahul Banerjee, Mangal Singh Champia and Jayanta Talukdar had combined to give India gold medal in the previous two World Cups held at Santo Domingo and Porec in the absence of Korea. This trio had won the first world cup team gold at the same venue last year. On Saturday, the Koreans showed better technique and concentration in windy conditions to reduce the Indians to mere spectators.
Korea established a slender one-point lead in the first end of six arrows (57-57). The lead increased to three points in the next end of six arrows (58-56) for a total of 115-112. Third end produced 56 for Korea and 54 for India and the final end gave Korea 54 and India 55 for a grand total of 225-221.
Korea won a team double taking the women’s gold medal as well beating Russian Federation 209-205.
Three more Indians, Kapil, Jayanta Talukdar and Rimil Biruly, are in the quarterfinals of the recurve category individual section to be played on Sunday.
|
|
Superb day for Indians at the World Cup
It was a great day for the Indians at the World Cup archery Stage III at Antalya, Turkey, on June 5..
Two youngest members of the contingent, Kapil and Rimil Biruly, annihilated world champions in the individual elimination round and moved into the quarterfinals while the men’s recurve teams moved into the final against Korea. The women’s team lost to Russia in the semifinals and will square off against Japan for the bronze medal.
Adding icing to the cake was Jayanta Talukdar’s progress to the quarterfinals thus keeping alive his chances making it to the World Cup finals at Copenhagen later this year.
Kapil and Rimil, putting behind the poor qualification scores, produced their best performance of their career by beating 2007 Leipzig World Championship winners, Im Dong Hyun of Korea and Natalia Valeeva of Italy respectively. Kapil ousted the top seed in the second round 115-111 for a rarest victory against a Korean. Rimil downed Natalia 108-105.
Talukdar scored his personal best, a world-class, 118 in going past American Brady Ellison who replied with 111.
Other Indians failed to go past the second round in the recurve section. A lot of expected from Rahul Banerjee and Mangal Singh Champia in the men’s section, Dola Banerjee, Reena Kumari and L. Bombayla Devi in the women’s category.
The compound archers, as usual, lost in the early rounds. The men’s team fell to Canada 215-223 while the women went out to Greece 213-217.
|
Rahul Banerjee 3rd overall; Indians teams second
Indian archers made a tremendous impact on the World Cup archery Stage III tournament at Antalya as both the men's recurve team and women's compound side stood second overall in the team qualification round on Wednesday.
According to information received here, Rahul Banerjee proved to be one of the best in the individual section by coming overall third with a score of 1348. Only the World Champion Koran Im Dong Hyun (1362) and his compatriot Oh Jin Hyek (1353) were ahead of him.
Banerjee, Jayanta Talukdar (1340, 6th) and Mangal Singh Champia (1321, 19th) enabled India to log with 4009 points for team placing. Again only Korea was before India with a total of 4053. It may be recalled that the trio had given India back to back gold medals in the team championship in the first and second World Cup held at Santo Domingo and Porec respectively.
Jhano Hansdah (1371, 8th), Bheigyabati Chanu (1358, 19th) and Namita Yadav (1342, 28th) gave India the second place - best placing so far in any international meet in recent time - with a total of 4080 points. Venezuela with 4112 earned the top place. India's fourth member Vrushali Gorle was 23rd with 1351.
|
