Indians enter five finals at the Asian Archery Championship
Rajat Chauhan and Jyothi Surekha Vennam entered the final of the men's and women's compound events respectively at the 2015 Asian Archery Championship in Bangkok on Friday by razor thin margins of 1 point each. Apart from these two, the Indian women's recurve and compound teams have reached the final as well, along with the men's compound team.
Chauhan edged out Iran’s Esmaeil Ebadi 150:149 in the men's compound event while Vennam, 19 years old, entered the final by beating Malaysia's Nor Rizah Ishak 140-139.
In the team events, the women's recurve team defeated Bhutan 6:0 in the first round and then went on to beat Kazakhstan 6:2 in the quarter-final. They got past China in the semi-final with a score of 5:1 and have now set up another clash with Republic of Korea in the fight for the gold.
The women's compound team figured directly in the quarterfinals after receiving a first-round bye, where they beat Thailand 230:213. They got the better of the Chinese Taipei team 228:222 in the semi-final and will now face Republic of Korea in the final.
The Indian compound men's team, who received a bye in the first round, eased past Kazakhstan in the quarter-final with a score of 237:221. In the semi-final, they came out on the top against a tough Iranian side 237:230, and now they will have to tackle the highly rated Republic of Korea in the final, as they look to defend the gold they won in the previous edition. If successful, this will be India's fourth gold in this event in the last six editions of the Asian Championship.
The day had its score of high-profile casualties as well, as defending champion Abhishek Verma and Sarvesh Pareek lost in the third round of the compound event, while Arjun bowed out in the second round. In the men's recurve event, Jayanta Talukdar lost in the quarterfinals to Wei Chun-Heng of Chinese Taipei 2:6.
On the men's recurve team event, India lost to the Republic of Korea 3:5 in the semi-final and then failed to grab the bronze in the third place playoff, as Chinese Taipei defeated them 4:5.
Earlier on Wednesday, Deepika Kumari and Jayanta Talukdar won the bronze medal in the recurve mixed team event as they defeated their Chinese opponents 37-35, 39-36, 31-39, 36-36.
India will need to strike gold in all the three events in contention to top the medal table, like they did in 2013.
Chauhan, who won India's first-ever individual medal in the World Archery Championship in August, will meet Korea’s Choi Yong Hee in the final on Saturday while Vennam will face Iranian archer Afsaneh Shafielavijeh in the final on Saturday.
Indians are continuing a fine run in Archery at global events; Last month, Deepika and Abhishek bagged silver at the World Championship in Mexico.
For the uninitiated, recurve and compound are two different bow designs. A recurve bow has tips that curve away from the archer when the bow is unstrung, while a compound bow is a modern bow that uses a levering system, usually of cables and pulleys, to bend the limbs of the bow.
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