Compounding woes

Surprise finalists,Indian womens team goes down fighting to USA,settles for silver.

Another day,another silver. A day after the Indian recurve favourites ended up being second-best,the womens compound archery team too failed to get the elusive yellow metal.

The last day of Indias campaign in the third stage of the archery World Cup at Ogden,USA,ended as per script. The womens compound final was the last chance for Indian archers to return with atleast one gold after Deepika Kumari & Co failed to win the other three a day earlier but that was not to be.

The trio of Manjudha Soy,Gagandeep Kaur and Jhano Hansdah went down to their much-fancied Americans Erika Anschutz,Christie Colin and Jamie van Natta 218 to 228.

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The Indian womens compound team had started off well in the competition,defeating more-fancied Mexico and France in the quarterfinals and the semi-finals respectively to make it to the title round. That in itself was an achievement,given that the compound team has never made it to the finals of a World Cup before.

But the very first arrow on Sunday was a prelude to how the tie was going to end. While the Indians hit a sub-par six-pointer,the Americans got nine to eventually win the first end 56-52 in the format,where all three archers get to shoot two arrows each. The trend was similar in the rest of the three ends,which the Americans won by comfortable margins 57-55,58-55 and 57-55.

However,while Indias fourth silver in as many finals may be disappointing,this has been the best-ever result for the compound team for long living under the shadows of recurve stars,including Jayant Talukdar,Dola Banerjee and Deepika Kumari.

The compound team had created a flutter at the Commonwealth Games last year by winning a silver in the mens event while the womens team bagged bronze,a result which outdid expectations even from the team coaches.

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For the record,this was first international outing for the compound team since stage I of the World Cup in Porec,Croatia,in May Hansdah,Kaur and Namita Yadav lost to eventual champions France in the quarterfinals then and did not participate in stage II in Antalya.