Berlin (Germany): India’s Aditi Gopichand Swami and Ojas Pravin Deotale clinched gold medals in the women’s and men’s individual compound events, respectively, at the World Archery Championships 2023, here on Saturday.
With this, India finished the Berlin archery meet with four medals — three gold and one bronze. All the medals were won by the compound archers.
The 17-year-old Aditi, seeded sixth, defeated Andrea Becerra of Mexico 149-147 in the final to become the youngest archer to win an individual event at the senior world championships.
Aditi, a U18 world champion and world record holder, defeated fellow Indian Jyothi Surekha Vennam, seeded second, 149-145 in the semifinals to book her place in the final.
Meanwhile, Jyothi Surekha Vennam beat Ipek Tomruk of Turkey 150-146 to win the bronze medal in the women’s individual compound event.
Another Indian archer, Parneet Kaur, was knocked out in the quarterfinals after losing to Jyothi Surekha Vennam.
Later in the day, India’s Ojas Pravin Deotale emerged victorious in the men’s individual compound event. Ojas beat Poland’s Lukasz Przybylski 150-149 in a tightly fought final to become the first Indian male archer to win a gold medal at the world championships.
The 21-year-old Ojas had earlier beaten Dutch archer Mike Schloesser, a former world champion, and Poland’s Przemyslaw Konecki in the semis and quarters, respectively.
India’s campaign at the World Archery Championships 2023 in Berlin, which is the first Paris 2024 Olympic qualifier event for archers, came to an end on Saturday.
None of the Indian recurve archers made the medal rounds, thereby failing to win any Olympic quota places for the Paris 2024 Olympics on offer in Berlin. Only recurve archery competitions are held at the Olympics.
