KOLKATA: Atanu Das' maiden appearance in World Cup Final ended in disappointment as the recurve archer bowed out losing the bronze-medal playoff match to Mete Gazoz of Turkey 0-6, hours after his wife Deepika Kumari lost in the shoot-off to Olympic team bronze medallist Michelle Kroppen of Germany in Yankton, USA, on Thursday.
Das could not find his rhythm against the reigning Olympic champion going down in straight sets 27-29, 26-27, 28-30.
Kolkata boy Das began his campaign with a 6-2 win over Germany's Maximilian Weckmueller, but failed to get past USA's world No.1 Brady Ellison losing 2-6 in the semifinals.
National archery from today: The focus shifts back to India as the 40th senior national archery championship will kick off at the Tata Archery Academy in Jamshedpur on Saturday. The championship, returning after a year, will be conducted in three phases starting with the Indian Round (bamboo round) event on October 2-3 to be followed by compound event on October 5-6 and recurve event on October 8-9.
The top 16 archers in the recurve and compound categories will then take part in the trials on October 10 and 11 for selection of the Indian team for the Asian Archery Championship scheduled to be staged in Dhaka in November.
