Rahul clinches silver in Archery World Cup

New Delhi, Apr 21 (UNI) Indian archers had impressive performances in the Archery World Cup at Porec (Croatia) from April 15-19, with Rahul Bannerjee winning the silver medal while India grabbed the team bronze in the men's recurve event.

Rahul displayed his best ever individual performance in the Olympic elimination round, defeating Weiss Johan of Denmark and Rohbberg of Germany in the 1/32 and 1/16 matches respectively.

After beating compatriot Mangal Singh Champia by a comfortable nine point margin in the 1/8 elimination round, Rahul outplayed Wan Aziz Wmk of Malaysia in the quarterfinal.

In the semifinal, Rahul waged a grim battle against defending champion Park Kim of South Korea, fighting to the final arrow before clinching victory with a three point margin (110 vs 107).

Rahul, however, lost the final to Girouille of France and had to settle for the silver.

In the men's team recurve event, the Indian trio of Rahul Bannerjee, Jayanta Talukdar and Mangal Singh Champia pipped France (220 v 213) in a tight encounter to win the bronze medal.

They had pipped Germany (224 vs 212), Ukraine (226 vs 219) while losing to Italy (226 vs 225) in the earlier rounds.

In the womens' recurve segment, L Bmbayla Devi and Pranitha Devi put up impressive individual performances.

Bombayla Devi lost the qurterfinal in the tie-breaker to Mospinek of Poland while Pranitha Vardineni eliminated Geargia and Great Britain archers in the first two rounds.

In the compound event however, the men and women archers disappointed with only Jhanu Iansdah reaching the quarterfinal.

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