Aditi Gopichand Swami of India and Ojas Pravin Deotale of India won gold medals in the women’s and men’s individual compound events at the World Archery Championships 2023 here on Saturday.
India finished the Berlin archery competition with four medals, three gold and one bronze. The compound archers took home all of the medals.
In the final, Aditi, who was seeded sixth, defeated Andrea Becerra of Mexico 149-147, becoming the youngest winner of an individual event in the senior world championships.
Aditi, an U18 world champion and world record holder, secured victory by defeating fellow Indian and seeded second Jyothi Surekha Vennam 149-145 in the semifinals. As a result, she advanced to the final.
Meanwhile, Jyothi Surekha Vennam won the bronze medal in the women’s individual compound event, defeating Ipek Tomruk of Turkey 150-146.
Jyothi Surekha Vennam eliminated another Indian archer, Parneet Kaur, in the quarterfinals after defeating her.
Later in the day, Ojas Pravin Deotale of India won the men’s individual compound event. Ojas defeated Poland’s Lukasz Przybylski 150-149 in the final to become the first Indian male archer to win a world championship gold medal.
Ojas, 21, had earlier defeated former world champion Dutch archer Mike Schloesser and Poland’s Przemyslaw Konecki in the semis and quarters, respectively.
On Saturday, India’s campaign at the World Archery Championships 2023 in Berlin, which served as the first Olympic qualifier event for archers in Paris in 2024, came to a conclusion.
None of the Indian recurve archers advanced to the medal rounds, which ultimately denied them Olympic quota spots for the Paris 2024 Olympics. The Olympics exclusively feature recurve archery competitions.
Source:IANS