Dhiraj Bommadevara showed some spark when he shocked two-time Olympic team gold medallist Kim Woojin 6-2 but lost his next two matches to return empty-handed as India ended their campaign with a solitary silver medal in the ‘Archery World Cup Final’.
Compound archer Prathamesh Jawakar won the country’s lone medal despite India fielding their biggest-ever contingent of five archers in the World Cup’s season-ending grand finale. Rising Indian recurve archer Dhiraj began his campaign on a rousing note when he rallied from 0-2 to pull off an upset 28-29, 30-28, 30-28, 29-26 win over the World No. 2 Korean heavyweight in the men’s quarterfinals. But the 22-year-old Army archer faltered against another Korean Lee Woo Seok as he went down 1-7 (28-28, 27-30, 28-30 and 28-29) in the semi-final to be left to fight for the third-place playoff, where he was up against Medellin World Cup winner Mauro Nespoli. The bronze medal contest went down to the wire with the Italian clinching the issue 6-5 (29-30, 27-27, 25-29, 27-26, 27-28) (10-9) in the shoot-off where Dhiraj dropped a point. Jayanta Talukdar remains the only male recurve archer to have won a World Cup Final medal — bronze — 13 years ago in Edinburgh. Dola Banerjee is the only Indian with a World Cup Final gold that came way back in Dubai 2007 in the women’s recurve section. In terms of medals, woman recurve archer Deepika Kumari is the most successful Indian, having won four silver medals at different World Cup Finals.
