Archers complete gold medal sweep

Indians bagged all the five gold medals up for grabs in the recurve event along with two more silver to make a clean sweep of the archery competition in the 12th South Asian Games here on Tuesday.

Having claimed the men’s, women’s and mixed pair team gold in the morning session, the recurve archers bagged two gold and as many silver in the all-Indian final in the afternoon to sign off in style with a maximum possible of 10 gold and four silver in total.

Making a comeback after the 2014 Asian Games, Tarundeep Rai retained his SA Games individual title to finish with a hat-trick of gold along with Deepika Kumari as the duo also bagged the mixed pair and their respective team events.

The two-time Olympian Rai held nerve under pressure to down his Army colleague Gurucharan Besra 6-2 in the individual final.

Deepika began with a poor five to lose the first set but she bounced back to win second, third and fifth sets for a 6-4 win against Bombayla Devi Laishram in an intense women’s individual final.

Deepika had earlier in the day won the women’s team gold with Laxmirani Majhi and Bombayala, and mixed pair with Rai.

The trio shot below par scores but it was enough for them to blank their misfiring Sri Lankan opponents 6-0 to open their tally in recurve.

Men’s team followed suit with a 5-1 win in what seemed a one-sided final in three sets but the scoreline did not reflect the stiff challenge Rai, Besra and Jayanta Talukdar faced from their Lankan rivals.

Rai and Deepika added a second gold to their kitty as they had a 6-0 cakewalk against the Bangladeshi duo of Sojeb Shiek and Beauty Ray.