Deepika Kumari secures silver, her 6th medal at Archery World Cup final

Indian veteran archer Deepika Kumari secured a silver medal in the women’s recurve category at the ongoing Archery World Cup final on Sunday.

The 30-year-old archer who also competed in the Paris Olympics, was defeated by China’s Li Jiaman 0-6 in the final, as per OIympics.com. Jiaman was also part of the archery team that secured the silver medal at Paris 2024.

Archery World Cup final featured eight archers in men’s and women’s categories across both recurve and compound archery.

In the quarterfinals, where the competition started, Deepika defeated Jiaman’s teammate from Paris 2024, Yang Xiaolei 6-0 in straight sets.

Deepika, the four-time Olympian, followed this win with a close-fought triumph over Mexico’s Alejandra Valencia, who was part of Mexico’s mixed team bronze medalist from the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

This is Deepika’s sixth medal in the Archery WC finals and her first since embracing motherhood in 2022. The Indian finished runners-up on five occasions, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2024. She secured a bronze medal in 2018.

At the Paris 2024 Olympics, Deepika had taken part in two events, the women’s individual and women’s team competitions with Bhajan Kaur and Ankita Bhakat. In both the events, she could only qualify for quarterfinals, continuing her and India’s medal-less run in the competition.

Based on her 2024 World Cup series rankings, Deepika qualified for the World Cup final. She had also secured a silver medal in the individual competition at the Shanghai World Cup.

A total of five Indian archers, including Asian Games champion Jyothi Surekha Vennam also competed in the World Cup final but her run ended in the quarterfinals with a loss to Estonia’s Meeri-Marita Paas with a 147-145 scoreline

In the men’s compound, Prathamesh Fuge had a heartbreak as he lost to the former World Champion Mike Schloesser of the Netherlands 150-146 in the bronze medal match.

Paris 2024 Olympians Dhiraj Bommadevara and Priyansh were knocked out in the quarterfinals of men’s recurve and compound archery respectively.