Commonwealth Games (CWG) Medal tally 2010 : Archers too join the party

Traditional Indian strongholds of shooting and wrestling have been, as expected, bringing laurels for the country. But it was the unexpected medal haul by compound archery teams that proved to be the icing on the cake on Thursday.

The women’s team of Gagandeep Kaur, Jhano Hansdah and Bheigyabati Chanu brought India its first- ever archery victory in the Commonwealth Games after beating Malaysia 223- 219 in the bronze medal play- off at the Yamuna Sports Complex.

A little later, the men’s compound team of Ritul Chatteerjee, Jignas Chittibomma and S. Srither went down to England 229- 231 in a closely contested final to settle for silver.

Despite being traditionally strong in recurve and compound, India has not had many wins. But on Thursday, the compound archers rose to the challenge as they gave the powerhouses a run for their money.

The men’s team came from behind to beat the South African team in the semi- finals ( 226- 224). After trailing by two points at the half- way mark, the Indians dug deep and came up with a perfect round of 60 to take the lead, which they held till the end.

The crowd has had a big hand in the result as well. The 100- odd spectators tried their level best to break the concentration of the South Africans by hooting and howling right before the archers let go of the arrow.

But the final was played out in much quieter environs as supervisors made sure that the crowd maintained decorum.

And England ran away with the game as they took a 5- point lead, missing the bulls eye only once by the half- way mark.

By the latter half of the match, the spectators defied pleas for calm and did their best to distract the Englishmen, but the lead proved too much for the Indians to overcome.

Even so, Chatterjee’s last three scores of 8, 9 and 9 took the wind out of the Indian challenge as Srither and Jignas had perfect scores of 10.

“ It was a satisfying performance.

They ( England) had a perfect start, but we didn’t let it pressurise us. The crowd support we got also helped us. Our efforts for the past two years have started producing results,” Srither said.

The women’s team lost to Canada in the semi- finals ( 217- 224). In their bronze medal match, the fate of the game was decided in the last three shots. The Malaysians had ended on 219 points and India were 195 with three rounds to go in the final end.

The hosts needed five points on Hansdah’s shot and she came up with an eight to give India its first medal in compound archery at the Games.

Gagandeep said though the team was disappointed about not making it to the gold medal match, this performance would boost them Chanu was pleased with the bronze medal feat. “ We are happy with our performance.

We held our nerves in a tough situation and delivered when it mattered,” Chanu said.

England won both the men’s and women’s compound team events.