The Indian women’s recurved archery team, which failed to book an Olympic quota in the Final Qualifier have made their comeback in their best form into the final of the World Cup stage 3 on Friday. The fancied trio of Deepika Kumari, Ankita Bhakat, and Komalika Bari had lost to lower-ranked Colombia on Sunday to miss the Olympic team qualification, but on Friday they just dropped a set before thrashing sixth-ranked France 6-2 in the semi-finals.
The trio had won the first stage of the World Cup in Guatemala City in April, will face Mexico on Sunday in a repeat of the first stage final. Deepika, the world third-ranked will be searching for a hat-trick of gold medals. The second-seeded Indian women’s team had got a bye in the second round and started by beating 15th seed Spain in straight sets, before thrashing seventh seed Turkey by an identical 6-0 margin in the quarterfinals.
In the last four stages, the trio shot 57, 57, 54, 57 to beat the French team of Lisa Barbelin, Audrey Adiceaom and Angeline Cohendet. On the other side, the Indian’s men team of Das, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav lost its last-eight match to top seed Germany in a dramatic shoot-off. The Germans shot three 9s against 8,9 and 9 by the Indian trio men to seal the win by one point.