The Indian men's recurve team comprising Atanu Das, B Dhiraj and Tarundeep Rai confirmed a medal at the Archery World Cup 2023 Stage 1 here, after storming into the final on Thursday.
The Indian team will face China in the gold medal clash on Sunday. This will be the first time in nine years that a men's Indian recurve archery team will feature in a World Cup final. India won its last World Cup gold medal in the men's recurve team event 13 years ago.
The men's recurve team, which got a first-round bye after qualifying as the fourth seeds, defeated 13th seed Japan 5-4 in the pre-quarterfinal after a 29-28 shoot-off victory.
The Indians shot two perfect 10s from three attempts (10, 10, 9) to seal the issue in the tie-breaker after both the teams were locked 4-4 (49-52, 57-52, 54-51, 52-57) following four sets of shooting.
Thereafter, the Indian trio beat 12th seeds Chinese Taipei and ninth seed Netherlands to set up the title clash with second seeds China. The Netherlands will face Slovenia in the bronze medal match, an olympics.com report said.
In their match against Chinese Taipei, the Indian men's recurve team raced to 4-0 lead before sealing the issue 6-2 (55-54, 57-54, 51-53, 58-56) with four 10s including an X.
In their next match against the Netherlands, a team that included the reigning Olympic champion Mete Gazoz,India won 6-2 (56-58, 57-53, 57-55, 56-54).
The Indian men's recurve team had won its first gold medal in a World Cup back in 2008.
The team of Jayanta Talukdar, Rahul Banerjee and Mangal Singh Champia defeated Malaysia 218-215 en route to a maiden recurve men's team gold medal in the World Cup. Since then, the Indian men's recurve team have won five gold medals in the World Cup.
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India last won a World Cup gold medal in men's recurve team event at Shanghai in 2010. Tarundeep Rai was also a member of the gold-winning side in Shanghai along with Jayanta Talukdar and Rahul Banerjee. The trio defeated Japan 224-220 in the final.
India reached the final twice in 2014 -- Stage 2 Medellin and Stage 4 Wroclaw -- but on both the occasions, the team finished with silver medals.
At Medellin, India lost to Korea in the tie-breaker while Mexico won the gold medal clash with a 5-3 win in Wroclaw.
Meanwhile, the recurve women's team was eliminated in the second round. The Indian trio of Bhajan Kaur, Simranjeet Kaur and Ankita Bhakat lost 2-6 (45-47, 56-51, 50-52, 53-55) to Spain.
The women's trio had beaten Brazil 5-4 (56-53, 50-55, 52-54, 52-51, 24-19) in the first round.
In the compound individual women's elimination matches, India's Jyothi Surekha Vennam entered the semi-final with a 147-142 win over Denmark's Tanja Gellenthien. She will face Britain's Ella Gibson next on Saturday.
Jyothi Surekha Vennam had equalled the world record in women's compound event qualification round on Tuesday. She scored 713 out of a possible 720 points to match the record achieved by Sara Lopez of Colombia in 2015.
En route to the last four, Jyothi Surekha Vennam defeated Switzerland's Myriam Hasler 145-137 before beating Danelle Lutz of the USA 145-141. Jyothi Surekha Vennam overcame Ana Sofia Hernandez Jeon of Mexico 415-138 to seal a quarter-final berth.
Among the other Indians in the compound women's individual elimination matches, Avneet Kaur was eliminated in the third round while Sakshi Chaudhary and Aditi Gopichand Swami could not progress beyond the second round.
In the compound individual men's elimination matches, Ojas Pravin Deotale, Prathamesh Samadhan Jawkar and Rajat Chauhan were all eliminated in the quarter-finals.
Ojas Pravin Deotale lost 148-150 to Malaysia's Mohd Juwaidi Mazuki while Prathamesh Samadhan Jawkar went down 147-145 to Mike Schloesser of the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, Rajat Chauhan was defeated 10-9 in the shoot-off by Slovakia's Jozef Bosansky after both archers were locked at 144-144. Rishabh Yadav failed to make it past the first round.
