Failing to qualify for two of the three World Cup events and returning home empty handed from the third, Deepika Kumari showed her class on the final day by winning one gold and two bronze medals in the World Cup archery Stage 4 at Wroclaw (Poland) on Sunday.
The 20-year-old anchored India to gold medal in the recurve team final. Later she won the mixed (with Jayanta Talukdar) and individual play-offs to annex two bronze medals.
The day also saw India earn a silver medal after the men’s recurve team went down to Mexico in the final.
On Saturday, India’s mixed compound pair of Abhishek Verma and Purvasha Shende settled for silver. India will return home with one gold two silver and as many bronze medals.
The team of Laishram Bombayla Devi, Laxmirani Majhi and Deepika powered to gold with a solid display against a powerful Mexican team that had London Olympic medallist Aida Roman, Alejandra Valencia and Gabriela Bayardo.
The Indians won by 6-0 set points, the set score being 52-50, 54-51, 56-53.
Unlucky The men’s team of Atanu Das, Tarundeep Rai and Talukdar were unlucky against Mexico’s Luis Alvarez, Pedro Vivas Alcala and Juan Rene Serrano.
Mexico won the first two sets to take a 4-0 lead. However, India took the third to make it 2-4. India needed to win the fourth to tie the score and take the contest into tie-breaker.
Shooting the last arrow and under severe time pressure, Talukdar sent it into the 6-point ring. Serrano hit 7 to tie the score at 52-all.
This earned Mexico one point from the set which gave the team a 5-3 triumph (56-54, 53-52, 53-55, 52-52).
Deepika dominated with clinical shooting in both the mixed and women’s individual play-offs.
The team of Talukdar and Deepika outplayed Belarus archers 6-0 (36-31, 38-32, 37-35) and in the individual, Deepika deprived Tatiana Segina of Russia a place in the Lausanne finals with a 6-2 (27-22, 28-29, 29-27, 27-25) triumph.
