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Journalism of Courage
On a day when India’s women’s compound team, the defending champions bowed out in the World Archery Championships in Gwangju, Korea, the mixed team of Rishabh Yadav and Jyothi Surekha Vennam became only the second Indian pair to reach the final with a 157-155 win over the Chinese Taipei’s Chang Cheng Wei and Huang I-Jou. While the mixed team pair of Abhishek Verma and Jyothi had won the silver in the 2021 World Archery Championships in Yankton, USA, Yadav and Jyothi became the first Indian pair to do so in World Archery Championships after the event was included in the Olympics.
Yadav and Jyothi, the winners of the title in Central Florida World Cup Stage 1 early this year, will now face the Netherlands World No.1 pair of Mike Schloesser and Sanne De Laat in the final on Sunday.
“The conditions were a bit windy here and the archery area is in a bowl shaped small valley, which makes the air change direction anytime. Both Rishabh and Jyothi kept their calm amid windy conditions and made sure that they carried the momentum of the earlier world cups this year. The key was to start well in windy conditions,” Indian team coach and Dronacharya awardee Jiwanjot Singh Teja told The Indian Express from Gwangju.
The opening day at worlds would see Yadav first shooting a score of 709, including 26 inner ten’s out of 61 ten’s to finish eighth in individual qualification before competing in the men’s compound team event, where the team reached the finals. Vennam too would start the day having shot a score of 707, including 26 inner tens out of 59 tens to be placed third in individual qualification followed by competing in the women’s team event, where she along with Parneet Kaur and Krithika Pradeep lost to the Italian team of Elisa Roner, Giulia Roner and Andrea Moccia in the second round.
With the mixed team event happening towards the end of the day and the Indian mixed team placed fourth with a combined score of 1416, both Yadav and Jyothi started strongly as the pair scored a 160-152 win over the German pair of Paolo Kunsch and Katharina Raab. The match would see Vennam hitting the inner ten ring five times. The Indian pair would then end the challenge of El Salvador’s Roberto Hernandez and Sofia Paiz with a 157-153 win in the quarters, a match which saw Jyothi hitting six inner tens with Yadav struggling in third set with two nine’s before the 23-year-old recovered.
The Indian pair, who had earlier made world record qualification score of 1431 in the Madrid World Cup Stage 4 in July this year, would face the eighth seed pair of Chang Cheng Wei and Huang I-Jou of Chinese Taipei in the semi-finals with the Taipei team edging out the top seeded pair of Kim Jongho and So Chaewon of Korea in a shoot-off after both the teams were tied. The semis saw both Jyothi and Yadav hitting their first shot in each set in the inner ten ring with the Indian pair scoring a 157-155 team in the end. Overall, Jypthi hit 16 inner ten’s out of the 22 tens shot by her with Yadav hitting eight inner tens out of 20 tens hit by him in the mixed team event on Saturday.
“Despite the loss in the women’s event, Jyothi kept her cool in the mixed team event and the perfect score of 160 in the second round match against Germany showed that. Both of them had an idea of the conditions by the end of the day and it helped them. During practice too, they shoot 200-250 arrows per day and such training comes handy on days like today where mixed events are at the end of the day. Jyothi’s perfect starts in sets always helps and Rishabh too has shown that he can raise his game at crucial points,” adds Teja.
Earlier in the day, Yadav, Prathamesh Fuge and Aman Saini became the first Indian men’s compound team to enter the finals in World Archery Championships. The Indian team, which had come second in qualification with a combined score of 2111, scored a win via shoot-off over Australia in the second round before registering a 234-233 win over USA in the quarters. In the semis, the Indian team scored a 234-232 win over the Turkish team of Emircan Haney, Yagiz Sezgin and Bathuhan Akcaoglu. They will now face fifth seeded French team of Nicolas Girrard, Jean Boulch and Francois Dubois in the final. “Rishabh was struggling a bit during the men’s team event with some posture issues but later recovered well with both Prathamesh and Aman making sure that the team maintained their winning run to enter the finals,” Teja said.
