Indian compound archers Rajat Chauhan, Abhishek Verma, and Aman Saini reached the final of the Antalya Archery World Cup stage 1 in the men’s team event.
(From left) Abhishek Verma, Rajat Chauhan and Aman Saini in Antalya during the Archery World Cup Stage 1. AAI
New Delhi: “Asian Games is unfinished business for us. We are going for that gold we missed in 2018,” a pumped-up Rajat Chauhan told Firstpost.com in an exclusive conversation from Turkey. The determination in the 27-year-old archer was palpable. And who could blame him? After all, the Indian compound team missed out on the top honour to the mighty South Koreans, who held on to their nerves in a shoot-off at the 2018 Asian Games final.
While the points were levelled at 29 each out of a possible 30 after the tie-breaker, Koreans clinched the gold medal by the virtue of hitting the inner circle of the bullseye (x).
Four years down the line and months away from the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, the same trio of Rajat, Abhishek Verma and Aman Saini have shown that they mean business as they have stepped up their game by a notch – quite evidently – at the ongoing Antalya Archery World Cup Stage 1. On the day, they scored splendid 237 and 235 out of a possible 240 to outlast Italy and hosts Turkey respectively early in the knockout stages. The twin victories placed them in the semi-final against Great Britain, whom they defeated by a point in a nerve-wracking encounter that saw the Indians show consistency again to amass 236 points.
“Today’s scores are there for everyone to see how serious we are about our preparations for the Asian Games, which is our Olympics (compound archery is a non-Olympic event),” the 2014 Asiad Gold medallist said on Wednesday. “The match against Great Britain went down to the wire and that’s what we wanted; thrive under pressure. Abhishek, Aman and I have the understanding of playing together for years and it only favours us in matches like this. We all are on the same page as far as our Asian Games ambitions are concerned.”
While the confidence is sky-high after the strong performances, winning the ongoing event on Saturday (April 23) is quite a challenge. The trio will take on a formidable opponent in France, who have scored impressive 232, 237, 238 on their way to the final.
Rajat is aware of the threat and said it is exactly the purpose of participating in such events and facing off France will only help them be better prepared for the bigger prize. However, the tournament still lacks India’s arch-nemesis and powerhouse South Korea, who have the reputation of skipping World Cups, especially post-pandemic to focus on the tournaments that matter to them the most.
“I have been participating in World Cups for years now and there are no freebies in these events. We have always been pushed and that’s why we have that extra zeal to be here. We already have the best team combination and we want to work on our fallacies before we make it to China. As far as Koreans are concerned, they have their own strategy and have a very competitive archery culture, which doesn’t always require them to play abroad and still be ready for major events,” said Rajat, who serves Rajasthan Police’s 5th RAC battalion.
Before the final showdown, the India trio will split and compete against each other in the men’s individual event in knockout formats on Thursday afternoon. Experienced archer Mohan Bhardwaj will join in as well as he finished 55th during the qualification stage on Tuesday.
The women’s compound team, who made exit at the quarter-final stage after losing to Turkey, will also compete in the women’s individual event with the likes of Avneet Kaur, Muskan Kirar, Priya Gurjar, Raginee Marko in action. It’s worth mentioning the team is without start performer Jyothi Surekha, who failed to make the cut during the Archery Association of India trials in March.
The Indian recurve archers squad, who competed in the qualification on Wednesday, also lacked star names in Deepika Kumari and Atanu Das as they met the same fate as Jyothi at the trials.
Among men, veteran archer Tarundeep Rai (670 points out of a possible 720) finished a strong seventh in qualification on Wednesday afternoon while young Sachin Gupta finished just behind him with 669 points. The duo will have the advantage of two bonus points in the opening round as the new rules of the competition allot extra points to top eight seeded archers. Earlier, top eight seeds were granted a first-round bye.
Jayant Talukdar managed to grab the 20th spot with 661 points and Neeraj Chauhan finished a lowly 61st with 648 points.
Among women archers, Ridhi (650 points) grabbed bonus points for the opening round with 8th place while Ankita Bhakat finished a creditable 14th with 642 points. Simranjeet Kaur (631) and Komolika Bari (627) fell outside the front 32 with 36th and 41st spots respectively.
The individual recurve events will begin on Friday afternoon.
The top 3 among Indian archers in both segments will come together as the Indian men’s team (seeded first) and women’s team (seeded fourth) to compete in Thursday’s morning session.
The compound and recurve mixed team events – consisting of a top individual performer from both men’s and women’s qualification rounds — are slated on Friday morning. Among recurve, Tarundeep and Ridhi will team up while Abhishek and Muskan.
All finals will take place from Saturday morning onwards.
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