Asian Archery C’ships: Parneet edges out Jyothi for gold; India finishes campaign with 7 medals

Bangkok: Eighteen-year-old Parneet Kaur got the better of the seasoned archer Jyothi Surekha Vennam to win the gold medal in the women’s compound individual event at the Asian Archery Championships 2023, here on Thursday.

According to information received, Parneet defeated Jyothi 9-8 in the shoot-off after both the archers were tied at 145 at the end of five sets.

Parneet, who finished fourth in the qualifying round, earlier defeated Kazakhstan’s Lyan Viktoriya 147-145 semifinals while Jyothi beat Huang I-Jou of Chinese Taipei’s 148-145 to set up an all-Indian final.

Reigning double World Archery Champion Aditi Gopichand Swami topped the qualification but suffered an upset in the third round.

However, the trio of Parneet, Jyothi and Aditi clinched the gold medal in the women’s compound team event with a 234-233 win over Chinese Taipei’s Wang Lu-Yun, Chen Yi Hsuan, Huang I-Jou in the final

Aditi also clinched the gold medal in the mixed compound team event alongside U21 world champion Priyansh. The Indian duo secured victory by defeating Thailand’s Kanoknapus Kaewchomphu and Lertruangsilp Nawayut with a score of 156-151 in the thrilling gold medal match.

In the men’s compound event, Abhishek Verma, the Asian Games 2023 silver medallist, settled with the bronze medal. He registered a narrow 147-146 win over Joo Jaehoon of South Korea in the bronze medal contest after losing the semifinal to Andrey Tyutyun of Kazakhstan.

India won five medals on Thursday, taking the final medal tally to seven — including three gold, one silver and three bronze at the Asian championships.

Earlier in the tournament, Indian women’s recurve and men’s compound teams won bronze medals on Wednesday.

Asian Archery Championships 2023 was also an Olympic qualifier for Indian recurve archers with gold medal-winning team per gender earning the Paris 2024 Olympics quotas in archery.

India failed to secure any quota places as both men’s and women’s recurve teams failed to win gold medals.

The Asian Archery Championships will be followed by the Asian individual Olympic qualifiers for archery at the same venue, from November 9 to 12.

The individual qualifiers will have two Olympic quotas (one per country) on offer in each of the men’s and women’s recurve archery events.

–IANS