Jyothi Suresh Vennam aims during the final against top seed Andrea Becerra of Mexico in the women’s individual compound final in the Archery World Cup Stage 1 in Shanghai. (World Archery)
The 27-year-old Jyothi Suresh Vennam emerged as the winner in a shoot-off with a closer nine against top seed Andrea Becerra of Mexico in the women’s individual compound final in the Archery World Cup Stage 1 in Shanghai on Saturday afternoon. Incidentally, the world number three and Asian Games champion has achieved the rare feat of having a hat-trick of gold medals in a world cup. She is the third woman archer in the world to do so.
The Andhra Pradesh archer had earlier paired up with world champion 17-year-old Aditi Swami and 19-year-old Parneet Kaur to win the women’s team gold and with Abhishek Verma to win the mixed team’s gold. She achieved the feat of three gold medals for the second time in her career after the treble in last year’s Asian Games. With the Indian men’s compound team winning the team gold and Priyansh winning the men’s individual silver, it was for the first time that the Indian compound team won four gold and one silver at the World Cup stage.
“Winning three gold in Asian games was a high for an archer like Jyothi and to return home from Shanghai with three gold medals in a World Cup would certainly help her confidence more. Even though the finals are close to 15 minutes each, it can take a toll physically as well mentally. The shoot-off would have meant extra pressure but I am glad that Jyothi handled that well,” said Sanjeeva Kumar Singh, India’s high performance director while speaking with The Indian Express from Shanghai.
Singh would elaborate on the training methods for team as well individual events. “In the last few months, we worked on the back pressure as well as the follow through of our archers apart from tuning the bows to the new adjustments. While team events have a time limit of 20 seconds per shot as compared to 30 seconds in individual events, our focus has been to increase the inner ten groupings and to restart when a nine is hit. That way an archer is more focused and maintains the momentum. Jyothi is delighted to have qualified for the World Cup final in Mexico,” said Singh.
The Indian compound team after winning four gold and one silver. (Special arrangement)
The day started with the Indian women’s team of Vennam, Aditi Swami and Parneet Kaur missing only four points in their 4-0 (236-225) win over Italian trio of Marcella Tonioli, Irene Franchini and Elisa Roner.
“It was a bit windy as well as rainy today and we wanted to be in an early momentum in the final against the Italians. We don’t talk about individual or mixed team events while competing and once we win, we surely talk about that for the particular archer (in this case Jyothi) about the other finals. It helped Jyothi didi today,” said Parneet Kaur.
Before Jyothi won the individual gold, the Andhra Pradesh archer paired up with Abhishek Verma to win her second gold of the day with a close 158-157 win over the Estonian pair of Lisell Jatma and Robin Jatma. Jyothi is only the third compound archer in the world to achieve the feat of winning three world cup medals after Sara Lopez of Columbia and Sarah Sonnichsen of Denmark. Three-time Olympian Deepika Kumari had earlier achieved this feat of winning three gold medals in recurve events at World Cup Stage 3 in 2021.
India could have won five gold medals had 21-year archer Priyansh not suffered a 147-150 loss against 2021 world champion Nico Weiner of Austria. Earlier in the day, Priyansh along with seasoned campaigner Abhishek Verma and 21-year-old Pune youngster Prathamesh Fuge missed just two points in their 238-231 title win over the Netherland’s men’s team of Mike Schloesser, Sil Pater and Stef Williams. “Prathamesh was playing in his first World Cup and to shoot along with a seasoned campaigner like Abhishek Verma would have helped his confidence.
“His parents run a cable service company in Pune and he had joined archery on the insistence of his father,” said coach Pravin Sawant. “This gold will add to both Prathamesh and Priyansh’s confidence.”
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