Heart-break for archery teams

India bowed to South Korea by the narrowest of margins in a thrilling final to claim the silver in the Asian Games compound archery men’s team final on Tuesday.

The Indian women also were beaten by the South Koreans in the final and as such, the team ended with a total of two silver medals.

The Indian team, comprising Rajat Chauhan, Aman Saini and Abhishek Verma, tied with the Koreans 229-229 in the final. The Indians had originally led by a point but on a Korean protest, one of their 9s was changed to a ten, bringing the scores level.

In the shoot-off, featuring three arrows each, the teams ended level with 29 apiece. But the Koreans had one inner ten (closest to the bull’s eye) and that proved to be the clincher and a heart-breaker for the Indians. India had beaten Korea in a similar manner to win the gold medal in Incheon four years ago.

“The challenge we accepted was that we would win the gold for our country. We couldn’t do that and for that we are sorry,” said India’s coach Lokesh Chand.

“It just slipped from our hands. It was a similar situation at Incheon, we won the gold in a tie. Today, it was the other way round,” he added.

Chauhan was a bit philosophical. “You win some, you lose some,” he said, but stressed that the team had proved the critics wrong. “Before coming here, there were some negative reports about us, that we were not preparing well. We have proved them wrong. We lost by only a minute margin, I would say we were a bit unlucky this time,” he said.

In the women’s event, the Indian team of Muskan Kirar, Madhumita Kumari and Jyothi Surekha Vennam lost 228-231 to the Koreans. In the final three arrows, the Indians need to hit all 10s to be level with the Korean score but they could fire only 8, 9 and 10.

The compound archers had won one gold, one silver and two bronze medals in 2014 but this time, the individual events were scrapped, reducing India’s chances.