In an edge-of-the-seat contest Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Ojas Pravin Deotale combined well to edge past Korea to win the mixed team compound archery gold medal for India at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China on Wednesday.
Jyothi and reigning individual men’s world champion Ojas defeated Korea’s Chaewon So and Jaehoon Joo 159-158 in a closely-fought mixed team compound gold medal match.
This was India’s first medal in Asian Games archery competitions. Jyothi , Ojas and Abhishek Verma have already assured medals in individual compound events. The finals for those events will be held later in the week.
On a way to the final, Jyothi and Ojas beat Kazakhstan’s Adel Zhexenbinova and Andrey Tyutyun 159-154 in the semi-finals after picking up a 158-155 win over the Malaysian pair of Binti Fatin Nurfatehah and Mohd Juwaidi Mazuki in the quarter-finals.
Meanwhile, pair of Atanu Das and Ankita Bhakat bowed out of the recurve mixed team competition following a 4-5 loss to Indonesia’s Diananda Choirunisa and Riau Ega Agata Salsabilla in the quarter-finals. The Indonesians nicked the tie after a shoot-off.
India’s campaign in the individual recurve events ended on Tuesday after Atanu Das and Dhiraj Bommadevara bowed out in the quarter-finals of the men’s events on Tuesday. Women’s recurve archers Ankita Bhakat and Bhajan Kaur were knocked out in earlier rounds.
The compound women’s and men’s teams will compete in the quarter-finals of their respective events on Thursday.
