The Hindu : Sport / Archery : Three Indians in individual final

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 24, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Sport

Sport - Archery

Three Indians in individual final

KOLKATA: Three Indians — Tarundeep Rai (men’s recurve), L. Haridas Singh (men’s compound) and Sweety Kumari (women’s compound) — moved into the final of the individual section of the second Asian Grand Prix archery meet in Tehran on Friday.

Two more Indians, Muni Ram Tirkey (men’s recurve) and Sushma (women’s recurve) were in line for the bronze medal.

A good bet

Second-seeded Rai will take on fourth-seeded Milad Vaziri Teymoorlooei of Iran in the final. Having scored in excess of 106 in all his earlier rounds, the Indian looks a good bet to win the gold medal.

The Iranian defeated top-seeded Muni Ram Tirkey in the semifinals 109-106. Tirkey will take on sixth-seeded Nadar M. of Iran for the bronze medal.

Kapil and K. Shiva Shankar lost in the quarterfinals.

Tough customer

Standing between fifth-seeded Indian Haridas Singh and the gold medal is Hungarian Robert Bojti. The third-seeded European could be a tough nut to crack despite Singh’s fluent wins in the earlier rounds. Singh scored 116 in the first round, 112 in the second and in the semifinals downed top-seeded Hamzeh Nekooi of Iran 109-107.

Sweety Kumari proved to be the best among four Indian women compound archers as she booked a place in the final against second seed Seyedeh Vida Halimian Avval of Iran.

Disappointments

The other three disappointed, with Manjudha Soy (second seed) losing to Leila Sakhaeifar of Iran in the quarterfinals 102-108 and Vrushali Gorle losing to Sweety at the same stage 99-104. Sakro Besra lost to the second seed also in the quarterfinals at 100-111.

Like Sweety Kumari, Sushma did not figure in the team composition. Yet the sixth-seeded Indian reached the women’s recurve semifinals where she lost to ninth-ranked Farideh Mirzaei of Iran 91-95. Sushma will play 10th seed Zahara Nemati of Iran in the bronze medal play-off.

The other three, Reena Kumari (top seed), Olympian V. Pranitha (second seed) and Punya Prabha (third seed) lost in the second round rather tamely.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport