Press Trust of India
Copenhagen, August 2: Indian women’s recurve team squandered a two-set lead and went down to top seed Russians in the shoot-off to bag a silver medal at the World Archery Championships, here Sunday.
The trio of Deepika Kumari, Laxmirani Majhi and Rimil Buriuly put pressure on the Russians opening up a 4-0 lead but could not wrap the issue as they lost the next two sets before going down in the shoot-off 27-28.
India thus picked their second silver in the ongoing Championships where compound archer Rajat Chauhan opened the account with a historic individual medal Saturday.
This is India’s best ever show in the World Archery Championships where they are in hunt for a third medal, and a double for Laxmirani who will fight for a bronze in the individual recurve section later in the day.
The second seeded Indian eves kept shuffling their order with the former World No. 1 either shooting first or last after her teammates Rimil and Laxmirani as Russians slowly recovered from a slow start.
The trio of Tuyana Dashidorzhieva, Ksenia Perova and Inna Stepanova had a series of 9s against India’s three perfect 10s and one closest to the centre (X) to trail 54-56.
Indians maintained their lead to wrap the second set 4-0 but failed to seal the issue in the third as Laxmirani and Rimil shot seven each. Rimil bounced back shooting a X while Deepika, shooting last, had a perfect 10 but it was not enough as they lost the third set by two points.
Under pressure in the fourth set, Deepika started the proceedings with a 9 in the first end only to be let down by Laxmirani and Rimil again as they shot a poor 7 and 6 in the fourth and fifth ends respectively.
Deepika once again shot a perfect 10 to end the sixth end and the fourth set but only to lose by four points as Russians made a spirited comeback to level 4-4 to take the summit clash to the shoot-off.
In the ensuing shoot-off, Dashidorzhieva made a perfect 10 which was matched by Laxmirani while in the second end Perova shot 9 while Rimil faltered again with an 8 to put pressure on Deepika again.
Required to score a perfect 10 after Stepanova’s 9, Deepika faltered under pressure and shot a 9 as India had to settle for a silver.