India's compound mixed pair of Abhishek Verma and Divya Dahal brought some cheer by clinching a bronze medal to conclude the country's otherwise miserable campaign at the Archery World Cup Stage II in Antalya, Turkey.
Having lost the men's and women's team events in the morning session, Verma and Dahal were India's only hope to sign off with a medal and the duo did not disappoint
The Indian combo survived a scare before posting a 154- 153 win in the bronze-medal match to finish with a solitary medal for the country.
Indian men's compound team earlier lost the bronze play-off to their French opponents, while the women's went down 222-227 earlier in the day.
The men's compound team failed to replicate its gold medal feat of Stage I in Shanghai last month.
In the recurve section -- an Olympic discipline – India failed to show any promise.
It's been a year since the recurve archers last won a World Cup medal -- in Stage III in Antalya in 2016 – where Atanu Das and Deepika Kumari had won a silver in mixed pair.
India had high expectation in the compound team event, where they bagged a gold in the World Cup Stage I but the trio of Abhishek Verma, Chinna Raju-Srither and Gurwinder Singh lost to Pierre-Julien Deloche, Dominique Genet and Fabien Delobelle 227-228 in a closely-fought encounter.
In the women's compound team event, Divya Dahal, Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Snehal Mandhare opened up a 56-54 lead and extended it 112-110 with consistent shootings. But they capped an 8 and 7 in a terrible third end of 54 to allow Marcella Tonioli, Irene Franchini and Viviana Spano to take a crucial 166-168 lead.
Italy came up with a near-flawless 59 in the fourth to claim the bronze medal.
Image used for representational purposes
Photograph: Dean Alberga/World Archery Federation via Getty Images
