Asian Games: Indian women lose recurve bronze play-off to Japan

The Indian recurve archers wrapped up a thoroughly disappointing performance at the 17th Asian Games after the women's team lost a tense bronze medal match to Japan in a shoot-off in Incheon on Sunday.

Japan started off the block in style by clinching the opening set of six arrows shot by each team 54-53 to take a 2-0 lead before India took the next two by 58-55 and 51-50 to lead 4-2 only for the former to fight back and force a tie at 4-4 by clinching the last set 58-55.

This resulted in a shoot-off in which each player shot one arrow at the target.

In the shoot-off, the Japanese trio fired two 10s and a seven to log 27 points. However, the first two Indians -- L Bombayla Devi and Laxmirani Majhi -- could shoot only an eight each.

Though star archer Deepika Kumari fired a perfect 10, it was not enough as her team's tally could rise only to 26.

India, thus drew a blank in the Olympic recurve bow event in which four years ago three medals were won by Tarundeep Rai (men's individual silver), men's team bronze (Rahul Banerjee, Mangal Champia and Jayanta Talukdar) and women's team bronze (Dola Banerjee, Rimil B and Deepika Kumari).

While the Olympic-event archers let the team down badly and returned from the arena without winning a single medal, the performers in the non-Olympic Compound bow created history with the men clinching the team gold and the women bagging the bronze.

The compound archers won two more medals in the individual category with Abhishek Verma winning the silver in men's and Trisha Deb grabbing the bronze in the women's event to upstage their better known recurve bow compatriots.

On Sunday, the recurve women's team should have got past the Japanese trio after taking a handy 4-2 lead after three sets as winning each set gave the team 2 points.

However, a sudden bout of nerves saw Bombayla, who was the first archer for India in the match, lose focus and she shot an 8 first, her third in a row and fifth overall in regulation time and again came up with a poor 8 off India's first arrow in the shoot-off.

It was a clear let down from someone who did very well in windy conditions at the London Olympics two years ago.

Deepika was the pick of the Indian lot and accounted for four of the nine 10s in regular play, and one in shoot off, and three more scores of 9.

Image: India archer Deepika Kumari

Photograph: Dean Alberga/World Archery Federation via Getty Images