Asian Games: Deotale-Jyothi pair wins compound mixed team gold

Team Udayavani, Oct 4, 2023, 10:06 AM IST

Hangzhou: A supremely confident Ojas Deotale and Jyothi Surekha Vennam dropped just one point to defeat their South Korean opponents by one-point and clinch their second gold medal in archery at the Asian Games here on Wednesday.

With this, Indian archers are set to win at least four medals from the ongoing Games, which will better their previous best show at Incheon in 2014 when they bagged a men’s team compound gold, one silver and a bronze.

In a gold medal clash between the top-two seeds, the No. 1 Indian pair was near perfect and pipped So Chaewon and Joo Jaehoon 159-158.

The Indian duo entered the final with a 159-154 win over Kazakhstan. They had just one ‘9’ and the rest were all ’10s’ in the semifinals against the Kazakh pair of Adel Zhexenbinova and Andrey Tyutyun.

Earlier in the day, the Indians held their nerve to beat Malaysia 158-155 and advance into the semifinals.

Kazakhstan defeated Thailand 154-152. Earlier, the Indian pair had a strong start to take a 40-39 lead but in the second-end both of them dropped two points as the Malaysian pair of Mohd Juwaidi Bin Mazuki and Fatin Nurfatehah Mat Salleh bounced back to draw level.

Reigning senior world champion Deotale, who was taking the first shot for India, missed the 10-ring by millimetres in the second end to put pressure on her senior teammate Jyothi.

The multiple World Cup gold medallist Jyothi also faltered to concede the second end to their rivals by one-point (38-39).

But the duo showed grit to come up with all 10s while shooting first in the third end as a strong Mohd Juwaidi dropped his first-point of the day that helped India regain the lead (118-117).

In the deciding fourth end, the Malaysian shot first and put pressure with back-to-back 10s but the Indian duo held their composure and responded in style with as many 10s.

It was Jyothi’s arrow that was bang on target, proving to be decisive as in the next shot the 32-year-old Fatin Nurfatehah hit the red-ring for an 8 to concede the match to the Indians.

The Indian archers had on Tuesday confirmed three medals to match their best-ever feat of Incheon 2014 at the continental showpiece.