Aditi Swami, 17, is the world champion; Parneet Kaur, 18, was part of the team that won gold at the World Championship in Berlin two months ago. They’ve achieved much.
Hangzhou: Teenaged archers Aditi Swami and Parneet Kaur, chaperoned by ‘old’ 28-year-old Jyothi Surekha Vennam, kept their nerve when it mattered most — the final of the women’s team archery event.
Aditi Swami, 17, is the world champion; Parneet Kaur, 18, was part of the team that won gold at the World Championship in Berlin two months ago. They’ve achieved much. Jyothi kept the spirits high in the intense final against Chinese Taipei, which India won 230-229.
“She was saying ‘aise shoot karo ki zindagi ka last shot hai’ — shoot as if it’s the last shot of your life. She told me, so I gave it my best,” said Aditi, who became the youngest world champion in Berlin.
Parneet, who qualified with 12th rank for the team final, came good when the others slipped, in the semifinals against Indonesia — Jyothi had a low round of 75 and Aditi a 78. Parneet, majoring in English at Khalsa College Patiala, rose to the challenge by dealing in only 10s, making it a perfect 80.
The final was much more thrilling as Jyothi, Aditi and Parneet shot 60 out of 60 in the final round as India edged Chinese Taipei by the thinnest of margins.
The scores were even at 200-200 before the last set, and the Indians then set the bar higher — they ended the set with three 10s in the final three arrows. The pressure on Chinese Taipei was intense, for they needed three perfect arrows to take the final to a shootoff
“There was a little nervousness in the match but we just focused on the shots and tried to hold ourselves in as much as possible. We did not focus on the competitors’ shots and just did our best,” Parneet later said.
The men’s compound team of Ojas Deotale, Prathamesh Jawkar and Abhishek Verma, the second seeds, won gold when they beat South Korea 235-230, with Verma shooting a 10 with his final attempt to put a stamp on a dominant performance.
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