Bangkok: Teenager Parneet Kaur secured the biggest win of her career when she pipped ace Indian compound archer Jyothi Surekha Vennam to clinch the individual crown at the Asian Championships here on Thursday. Compound archers once again overshadowed their recurve teammates as India bagged three gold, one silver, and three bronze medals. Of the seven medals, only a solitary bronze came from the recurve section (women's team).
In an all-Indian women's compound individual final, Parneet trailed by two points till the halfway mark but the bespectacled 18-year-old produced two perfect last rounds to level the score 145-145 and force a tie-breaker. Fresh from winning a hat-trick of gold at the Asian Games last month, Jyothi was not at her best and lost the shoot-off 8-9 as Parneet won her maiden individual gold medal at the International level.
Indian compound mixed team of Aditi Swami and Priyansh earned India a second gold, defeating Thailand 156-151 in a lopsided final. Indian compound women's team of Jyothi, Parneet and Aditi, which also bagged the Asian Games gold last month, did an encore, winning the title with a 234-233 win over Chinese Taipei.
India also won their third bronze which came in the compound men's individual section courtesy Abhishek Verma. The veteran Indian archer pipped Joo Jaehoon of South Korea 147-146.
None of the recurve archers managed to progress beyond the quarterfinals. Dhiraj Bommadevara was eliminated by Tang Chih-Chun 3-7, while his senior Army colleague Tarundeep Rai was blanked 0-6 (27-29, 28-29 29-30) by Kim Je Deok of South Korea. Both archers shot consistently but the Tokyo Olympics team gold medalist Deok was far superior and dropped just two points in nine arrows.
In the women's section, the archers failed to advance beyond the pre-quarterfinals. Bhajan Kaur lost to World No. 1 Lim Sihyeon of South Korea 0-6 (28-29, 26-30, 26-29), while Tisha Punia managed one point before going down 1-7 (24-29, 27-27, 28-29, 27-28) to China's Hai Ligan in two one-sided last-16 matches.
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