World Archery Championships: Ankita Bhakat placed creditable seventh in women’s recurve event

India archers return home with three silver medals won by compound women’s team and mixed events and the lone individual win by V Jyothi Surekha also in the compound event.

The lone Indian survivor Ankita Bhakat was placed creditable seventh in the women’s recurve, an Olympic event, of World Archery Championships which concluded this weekend at the 100-acre complex NFAA Easton Yankton Archery Center in Yankton, South Dakota, the US.

Ankita was outshot by eventual silver medallist Casey Kaufhold of the US in the quarterfinals 2-6. Earlier the 23-year-old from Kolkata, daughter of milkman, stunned fourth seeded Korean archer Kang Chae Young 6-4 in the pre-quarterfinals.

In the second and third round, Ankita overcame Jindriska Vaneckova of Czech Republic 7-3 and Alexandra Mirca of Moldova 7-1. The Indian ranked 17 in the World who got a first round bye was placed seventh among 77 competitors.

Ankita who has won seven international medals is yet to win an individual medal in the prestigious World Championships even though this is her second appearance. She had won team gold medals in 2017 World youth meet and in World Cup stages early this year and is touted as the worthy successor of Deepika Kumari.

The Korean Kang had thrashed World junior champion Komalika Bari of India 6-4 in the third round.

Another Indian in recurve event, Ridhi lost in the second.

Parth Salunkhe and Atul Verma who competed in the men’s category lost in the first two rounds while Aditya Choudhary reached fourth round before succumbing to Miguel Garcia of Spain 6-0.

“So many archers who competed and won medals at the recent Tokyo Olympics like An San of South Korea are here. They are inspiring. I was just looking at their shooting and I was thinking how well they are shooting. By seeing them, I think that I will also shoot like that and I will also do well in future,” Komalika told worldarchery.spot about her graduation from junior tournaments to senior level.

India returned home with three silver medals won by compound women’s team and mixed events and the lone individual win by V Jyothi Surekha also in the compound event.

In the gold medal round, the Vijayawada girl lost to Colombia’s Sara Lopez by 146-144. It was also Jyothi’s third meeting with Sara in the Worlds finals here. Jyothi also played a prominent role in both the team finals which finished second also against Colombia.

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