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KOLKATA: Deepika Kumari made amends for missing out on a podium finish at the Paris Olympics by winning her fifth silver medal at the World Cup Final at Tlaxcala , Mexico, on Sunday. This was Deepika's sixth medal in her ninth appearance in the finals and her first since becoming a mother in 2022. However, gold continued to elude her as the former World No.
1 archer finished runners-up on five occasions in 2011, 12, 13, 15 and 24. She also won a bronze medal in 2018. Dola Banerjee remains the only Indian to have won a gold in the World Cup Final, having topped the podium in Dubai 2007.
The five-member Indian contingent, comprising three compound and two recurve archers, thus concluded their season-ending World Cup Final campaign with just one medal. Deepika, who qualified by virtue of her World Cup rankings this season, started her campaign in the quarterfinal by beating China's Yang Xiaolei by 6-0 (27-23, 29-22, 29-27). She followed it up with a 6-4 (29-28, 26-26, 26-29, 28-28, 28-27) victory over Mexico's Alejandra Valencia, a women's team bronze medallist at Paris 2024, in the semifinal.
The third seeded archer perhaps once again came under pressure in the gold-medal match and went down 0-6 against fourth-seed China's Li Jiaman, a team silver medalist from the Paris Olympics. She lost the first set by a single point (26-27) while a flawless Li hit 30 to go 2-0 (30-28) up. A 7 by Deepika in the third set saw the four-time Olympian go down 25-27 in the third set.
Another recurve Olympian Dhiraj Bommadevara was knocked out in the quarterfinals. AAI looks for national coach, HPD The Archery Association of India (AAI) is looking for a new national archery coach after Korean coach Baek Woong Ki did not renew his contract after the expiry of his term on Aug 30. The Korean coach was reportedly outraged after being denied accreditation for the Paris Games.
The new coach, with at least five years' experience of coaching high-performing teams, will be given a "four year term up to 2028 Olympic Games, subject to performance review after 2026 Asian Games". The association also advertised for a High-Performance Director (HPD) after Dronacharya Sanjeeva Singh's term ended. The new HPD's terms will be the same as that of the new coach.
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