Archers claim three more gold, set to make a clean sweep

Indian archers grabbed three gold medals in recurve section and are all set to make a clean sweep in the discipline at the 12th South Asian Games, here today.

Indian women's trio of Deepika Kumari, Laxmirani Majhi and Bombayala Devi shot below par scores but it was enough for them to blank their misfiring Sri Lankan opponents 6-0 to open their medals tally in recurve at Polo Grounds this morning.

"Wind was circulating inside the stadium and it was getting difficult to adjust to get a perfect 10. Thankfully it was easy for us," Deepika told PTI after the win.

The men's team followed suit with a 5-1 win in what seemed to be a one-sided final but it was not as the Indian trio of Tarundeep Rai, Gurucharan Besra and Jayanta Talukdar faced a stiff challenge from their Lankan rivals.

While defending champion Rai and Talukdar were not in their elements, it was Besra who continued his dream comeback run and made all the difference with one-point and two-point wins in the first and decisive third set.

India's mixed pair of Rai and Deepika added a second gold medal to their kitty, a third overall in recurve, as they had a 6-0 cakewalk against the Bangladeshi duo of Sojeb Shiek and Beauty Ray.

The archers are all set to conclude their campaign by winning two gold and two more silver medals in the all-Indian individual men's and women's finals in the second session later in the day.

Earlier yesterday, the compound archers too signed off in style winning all the five golds on offer along with two silver medals.

Taking the newly-included compound section into account, India's final medals tally in archery at the 12th edition of the Games will thus be 10 gold and four silver medals.

The women's final was a complete mismatch as the Sri Lankan team suffered a time-out in the first set.

Such wayward Indranath was that she shot 4 and 3 something that led to a time-out set as Indians despite shooting a poor 51 took home a 2-0 lead in the first set.

It got worse for Indranath as she then missed the target twice drawing two zeroes as India wrapped up the issue 6-0 with below-par scores of 53 and 52 in the second and third sets.

Indian women's team had just two perfect 10s one each from Deepika and Laxmirani but it hardly mattered in a lopsided contest.

Individual champion in the Dhaka edition of the Games, Rai started the proceedings for India with a poor 8 as the trio totalled 23 against Lankan's 27 (9-8-10).

But still they managed to overcome the Lankans 52-51 with 10-10-9 in the second end where the rivals shot 8-8-8.

Indians almost lost the second set but Besra made all the difference with his perfect 10 to level 53-53 to create pressure on the Lankans.

Senior Army archer Besra, who was making an international comeback after 2001, shot another perfect 10 in the third set as India beat Sri Lanka 55-53 to win the gold by 6-0 margin.