Good day for Indian archers at World Cup

On a highly successful day for India, the trio of Jayanta Talukdar, Tarundeep Rai and Rahul Banerjee clinched gold before Deepika Kumari settled for a silver medal at the Archery World Cup Stage IV in Shanghai on Saturday.

It was double delight for Talukdar as he later came from behind to beat Athens Olympic champion Marco Galiazzo to win bronze in men's individual recurve.

The Indian men's recurve team beat Japan's combination of Ryota Amano, Takaharu Furukawa, Hidekl Kikuchi 224-220 to finish on top.

Deepika, playing her maiden senior final, though had to be content with a sliver as she lost the summit clash 27-29, 27-27, 28-28, 27-30 to Korea's Bo Bae Ki. Talukdar came from behind to beat the Italian 28-29, 30-26, 28-28, 29-27, 28-27.

The win was Talukdar's third over Galiazzo in four meetings. With their victories, Deepika and Talukdar have qualified for the Edinburgh World Cup finals on September 18 and 19.

Deepkia is the second Indian woman after Dola Banerjee to make it to the final. Talukdar joins Brady Ellison (USA), Galiazzo, Im Dong-Hyun, Kim Woojin (Korea), Michele Frangilli (Italy) and Simon Terry (Great Britain) in the finals.

Deepika has been grouped with Bo Bae Kim, Yun-Ok-Hee (Korea), Guo Faping (China), Victoriya Koval (Ukraine), Elena Kuznetsova (Belarus) and Justyna Mospinek (Poland). Talukdar has twice entered the final in 2006 and 2009 but failed to win the top place.

Dola Banerjee had qualified for the final at Dubai in 2007 and won it. Earlier, India's men led Japan 57-54 at the end of the first end and built on it to make it 113-108 in the second end. Japan looked better in the third end (56-55) and both teams finished tied at 56-56 for their last arrows.

However, India rode on their fine show in the first ends to clinch the gold. The men's team had returned empty-handed from the World Cup Stage III at Ogden after losing to USA in the quarterfinals.

This time India's first round victim was Great Britain, one of the strong contenders at the Commonwealth Games. Incidentally, India beat USA 225-208 in the quarterfinal to avenge their loss in the last edition. Japan came into the final after shocking world champion Korea 224-216.

V K Malhotra, President of Archery Association of India, congratulated the archers for their medal winning feat and hoped they will be able to bring more laurels for the country in the Commonwealth Games.