Muristek
Gwangju (S Korea), May 21
The Indian men's compound archery team today came from behind to prevail over France by two points to win the gold medal in successive World Cup stages.
The unheralded Mohan Bhardwaj also shared the limelight as he stunned Nico Wiener, the reigning world champion, en route winning an individual silver as the Indian compound archers outshone their much-fancied recurve teammates.
A day after the women recurve archers ended their campaign with a solitary bronze in the team event, India bagged a gold, silver and bronze in the compound section today to end their World Cup Stage 2 campaign with five medals.
That the compound archers bagged a gold, silver and two bronze for India's total medal count of five summed up their dominance compared to the TOPS-supported Olympics discipline recurve archers.
India began the day with the men's compound team dishing out a superb fightback to beat France 232-230 to win gold.
In a repeat of the Stage 1 final, the fourth-seeded men's team, comprising Abhishek Verma, Aman Saini and Rajat Chauhan, found itself trailing against the sixth-seeded rivals in the first two ends.
But riding on an immaculate finish in the third end, the trio sealed a 232-230 win over their French counterparts Adrien Gontier, Jean Philippe Boulch and Qentin Baraer to win gold.
In the last World Cup final in April, the same trio had defeated France by a point.
"It's our second consecutive win (this season). We were the best in Turkey and proved it again. We are very happy about that," Verma said.
"We know the strategy of France and we know their potential. We changed our strategy after the third round and it helped," Chauhan pointed out.
Verma went on to win a second medal — a bronze — when he, along with Avneet Kaur, pipped Turkey's Amircan Haney and Ayse Bera Suzer 156-155 in the mixed team event.
For Kaur, this was her second bronze after the team bronze in the women's event earlier.
Later, world No. 223 Bhardwaj, who made his World Cup debut only last month, conjured up the biggest win of his career when he shocked world No. 7 Wiener 143-141 in the semifinals to claim silver.
This was his first individual medal at the international stage. Bhardwaj had won his maiden international medal, a team silver, at the Bangkok Asian Championships in 2019.