Sulaymaniyah (Iraq): Indian archers wrapped up a highly successful Asia Cup 2022 Stage-2 campaign with a total of 14 medals – eight golds, four silvers and two bronze, here on Wednesday
Having secured four medals on Tuesday, the young Indian archers added 10 more to their medals tally on the final day of the competition. India clean-swept gold medals in all categories barring the women’s individual recurve and mixed recurve, both of which yielded silvers.
The final day’s medal rush began after the Indian trio of Mrinal Chauhan, Parth Salunkhe and Juyel Sarkar outshot Bangladesh 5-1 in the men’s recurve team event final to pocket the gold medal.
Meanwhile, the women’s recurve team of Avani, Bhajan Kaur and Laxmi Hembrom overcame a far sterner test in their final match. The trio edged out Bangladesh 5-4 in the gold medal decider. Parth Salunkhe and Bhajan Kaur then bagged the recurve mixed team silver after going down to Uzbekistan 5-4 in a shoot-out.
Both Salunke and Kaur also won individual medals. While Parth Salunke defeated Uzbek archer Amirkhan Sadikov 6-4 in the bronze medal match, Bhajan Kaur had to settle for silver in the women’s section, losing 6-2 against Iranian archer Mahta Abdollahi in the final.
Mrinal Chauhan defeated Bangladeshi fourth seed Ruman Shana 6-2 to pocket the men’s individual recurve gold.
Both the individual compound event finals were all-Indian affairs. In men’s, Prathmesh Fuge outscored team-mate Rishabh Yadav 146-144 for the gold medal while Sakshi Chaudhary beat Parneet Kaur 140-138 to claim the women’s title.
Notably, India had sent a young team to the continental meet with all members of the contingent under the age of 20.
(IANS)
