Dhaka, Nov 14 (IANS): Indian archers came up with good scores to be placed towards the top of the seedings list after the qualification round in both recurve and compound sections of the 22nd Asian Archery Championships in Dhaka, Bangladesh on Sunday. Youth World Champion Ankita Bhakat in recurve and Abhishek Verma -- who had done well in the World Championships in Yankton, USA in September -- were both placed in the top five in Individual Competitions.
The Indian men's and women's teams qualified in second place in both the recurve and compound sections behind South Korea in the team competitions. The Indian pairs were also placed second in both compound and recurve mixed team competitions.
In the men's recurve section, Kapil (675) was the best-placed Indian at fifth position. Pravin Jadhav, who made his Olympics debut at Tokyo 2020 in August this year, was sixth with 670. National champion Parth Salunke came in seventh with a score of 670 but hit 31 inner 10s as opposed to Pravin Jadhav's 33. India's Sukhchain Singh was placed 11th.
The Indian team of Kapil, Pravin Jadhav, and Parth Salunke had a total tally of 2015 from 216 arrows and was placed second behind Korea, with a total of 2039. Bangladesh (1996), Kazakhstan (1956) and Iran (1904) completed the top five in the nine-team competition. The Indian team got a bye in the next round and will take on Saudi Arabia in the quarter-finals on Tuesday (November 16).
In the women's recurve competition, Youth World Championship medallist Ankita Bhakat finished fifth in the qualifying with a score of 657. Madhu Vedwan also scored 657 but hit 10s and bulls-eye 24 times compared to Ankita's 26 and was thus placed sixth. India's Ridhi and Komolika Bari finished seventh and eighth, respectively.
The Indian combine of Ankita (657), Ridhi (650), and Madhu (657) had a total of 1964, finishing a distant second behind the Korean team that compiled an Asian Record total of 2045. India will take on the winner of the match between Kazakhstan and I\Vietnam in the quarter-finals.
The Indian archers did well in the compound section too.
In the men's qualification round, Rishabh Yadav, who was third with 708, was the best-placed Indian, finishing ahead of Abhishek Verma, the World Cup gold-medallist, who was placed fourth with a score of 707. Aman Saini and Mohit were placed 13th and 16th, respectively, in qualifying.
Rishabh Yadav, Abhishek Verma, and Aman Saini will compete together in the compound men's team event. They were placed second with a score of 2113, behind Korea who scored a Championship Record score of 2131.
In the women's compound section. world championships silver-medallist Jyothi Vennam was the best Indian, finishing fourth with a total of 701. Parneet Kaur and Priya Gurjar finished with identical scores of 700 but Parneet, on the back of 24 shots in the 10s came in fifth ahead of Priya, who had 19 shots in the 10s and was sixth. India's Muskan Kirar was seventh with a score of 697.
Jyothi, Parneet and Priya will take part in the compound women's team competition. They were seeded second with a total of 2101. The South Korean team of Kim Yun-Hee, Oh Yoo-Hyun, and Song Yun-Soo shot a world record total of 2116 in the qualifying round, improving on the previous record of 2112 set by Colombia in 2019.
The Indian pairs were placed well in the Mixed Team competitions too.
In Recurve Mixed Team competition, the Indian pair of Ankita (657) and Kapil (675) was placed second with a total of 1332 behind the Korean combine of Ryoo Su-Jung (687) and Lee Seung-Hyun (680) who had a total of 1367.
In the Compound section, the Indian combine of Jyothi (701) and Rishabh Yadav (708) was placed second with 1409 behind the Koreans, who had a total of 1424.