This story is from May 22, 2022
World
Cup Stage II in Gwangju, South Korea on Saturday.Just a month back, the Indian trio of Rajat Chauhan, Aman Saini and AbhishekVerma
handed their same rival, France, a defeat in the summit clash at World Cup Stage I at Antalya, Turkey.Just minutes after that triumph, Verma paired up with Avneet Kaur to beat Turkey’s Ayse Bera Suzer and Emircan Haney156-155 to take the mixed team bronze.India appeared in four of the five compound finals in Gwangju, winning one gold, two bronze and a silver. With the recurve women side claiming a bronze in the team event, India finished with five medals in the second stage.In a strange similarity to last month’s final, the sixth-seeded France team of Adrien Gontier, Jean Philippe Boulch andQuentin Baraer
, led the first two sets before India made a comeback.On Saturday too, the Indian archers, down by one point after two sets, showed their best in the third scoring a perfect 60 that saw them take the lead and finish off with a score of 232-230.“The feeling is good,” said Verma. “We were the best in Turkey and we proved it again (here). We are very happy about that.”His teammate Chauhan stated that a change in strategy after being down helped them. “We know the strategy of France and we know their potential. We changed our strategy and did very well,” he said.In the next match, Verma and Kaur scored a perfect 40 in the last end to finish off the Turkish challenge.However, it was Mohan Bhardwaj, who emerged as India’s new hero claiming his first World Cup medal — a silver in the compound individual event. The Uttarakhand archer, who qualified low down at 42nd position, went strength to strength in the elimination rounds. It required World No.1 Mike Schloesser from The Netherlands to stop his winning run with a 149-141 win in the final. The 32-year old whose world ranking is currently at 223 earlier shocked reigning World champion Nico Wiener of Austria 143-141 in the semifinals.