Milestone! Gold for Indian women's recurve team, Deepika, Atanu in Archery World Cup

Guatemala, April 26: India produced the best-ever performance in Archery World Cup bagging 3 gold medals and 1 bronze medal here on Sunday. Indian women's recurve team won a gold medal while Atanu Das and Deepika Kumari won individual gold medals in the recurve men and women's events respectively.

 

The Indian trio including Deepika Kumari, Ankita Bhakat and Komalika Bari shot 27 to edge out their Mexican rivals by one point and claim their first World Cup team gold after seven years. This is Deepika's fifth World Cup stage event team gold medal. This was India's fifth recurve women's team gold in World Cup having won in Shanghai- 2011, Medellin-2013, Wroclaw-2013 and 2014 previously.

 

 

The newly-wed Atanu and Deepika, who got married on June 30 last year, automatically qualified for the Archery World Cup final after their triumphs. Former world number one Deepika beat Mexico's Alejandra Valencia 7-3 to claim her 3rd individual World Cup gold. Meanwhile, Das outclassed Spanish World Cup debutant Daniel Castro 6-4 to claim his maiden individual World Cup medal.

 

 

“We travel together, train together, compete together and win together. She knows what I like, and I know what she likes," Das, who married Deepika after a 2-year courtship, said.This was India’s recurve archers’ best ever World Cup finish with two individual and one team gold medal in their return to the top International calendar year event after almost two years.

Also, this was India’s best-ever individual recurve men’s result since Jayanta Talukdar triumphed in Croatia way back in 2009. "It’s beautiful. It’s a big boost for me,” Das said. “The Olympics are this year, and I’m working in the right way."

 

Meanwhile, the performance rubbed off on the mixed pair duo of Das and Ankita Bhakat as they bagged a mixed pair bronze, upsetting top seed USA 6-2 with yet another fightback at the Sports Complex Los Arcos here.