KOLKATA: Bengal archers hogged the limelight as India ended up fifth in the medal standings with seven medals - six silver and one bronze in the Asia Cup Stage 3 that concluded in Singapore on Saturday.
The Bengal archers of Ruma Biswas, Aditi Jaiswal and Juyel Sarkar picked up four medals with Biswas winning two in the women's recurve category. While Jaiswal and Sarkar train at the Dola and Rahul Banerjee Sports Foundation (DRBSF) and KP Training Academy, Biswas has been a find of the Bengal Archery Academy in Jhargarm.
The women's team of Ridhi Phor, Biswas and Jaiswal, who qualified third in the ranking round, went down to powerhouse Korea 3-5 (49-57, 50-54, 55-53, 54-54) in the final.
Biswas then faltered against China's AN Qizuan to go down 2-6 in the recurve individual final.
The Indian men's recurve side of Sarkar, Parth Salunkhe and Rohit Kumar failed to put up any significant challenge as they lost 1-5 (52-54, 57-57, 52-57) to China. Sarkar missed out on another medal as he along with Ridhi lost to their Uzbekistan rivals 1-5 in recurve mixed team bronze-medal playoff match.
Parth conceded his men's recurve gold medal match to Qi Xiangshuo of China 2-6.
Pragati won a bronze defeating her teammate Deepshikha 147-146 in the compound women's individual third-place playoff. The trio of Sakshi Chaudhary, Pragati and Deepika lost to Korea by two points (232-234) in the compound women's team final. Korea proved to be India's nemesis once again as the compound men's team of Priyanish, Kushal Dalal and Uday Kamboj lost 235-238 in the compound team final.
India picked 10 medals (five gold, four silver, one bronze) in Asia Cup Stage 1 in Taoyuan, Chinese Taipei and bagged 14 medals (seven gold, five silver, two bronze) at Stage 2 in Tashkent.
