World Archery Championships: Indian women's compound team wins first-ever gold in history

Berlin, Aug 4: The Indian women's compound team created history on Friday (August 4) as they won a gold medal in the World Archery Championships. The Indian team comprising Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Aditi Swami and Parneet Kaur defeated Mexico in the final.

The Indian trio won 235-229 to open the gold medal account for the country in the championships. This is the first instance when India became the world champion in any category of archery.

India have won 11 medals, including 9 silver and 2 bronze, in the 92 years since the start of the World Archery Championships, but they have never won the yellow metal in the competition before this.

"This feels wonderful because this was the first gold medal for the country. Hope there are more medals in archery in future," Jyothi Surekha Vennam, the most experienced archer in the team, said after the gold medal. However, it was the 7th medal for Jyothi at the WAC overall, but the first gold.

The Indian girls had defeated Colombia 220-216 in the semifinals after a 228-226 win over Chinese Taipei in the quarterfinals. All three women archers also qualified for the quarter-finals in the individual rounds to keep their medal hopes alive.

The individual knockout matches will be held on Saturday and Sunday in the German capital. The historic success in compound archery comes for India after disappointment in the recurve archery section, where neither the teams nor any of the individual archers managed to secure Olympic quotas.

World Archery Championships: Full List of Indian Medallists

2005 recurve men's team silver, Tarundeep Rai, Gautam Singh, Jayanta Talukdar

2011 recurve women's team silver, Deepika Kumari, Laishram Bombayla Devi, Chekrovolu Swuro

2015 recurve women's team silver, Rimil Buriuly, Deepika Kumari, Laxmirani Majhi

2015 compound men's silver, Rajat Chauhan

2017 compound women's team silver, Trisha Deb, Lily Chanu Paonam, Jyothi Surekha Vennam

2019 recurve men's team silver, Atanu Das, Pravin Ramesh Jadhav, Tarundeep Rai

2019 compound women's bronze, Jyothi Surekha Vennam

2019 compound women's team bronze, Raj Kaur, Muskan Kirar, Jyothi Surekha Vennam

2021 compound women's silver, Jyothi Surekha Vennam

2021 compound women's team silver, Priya Gurjar, Muskan Kirar, Jyothi Surekha Vennam

2021 compound mixed team's silver, Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Abhishek Verma

2023 compound women's team gold, Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Aditi Swami and Parneet Kaur

(With Inputs from Agencies)