KOLKATA: Top archers fell by the wayside as upsets marked the second National Ranking Archery Championship that concluded at Kharsawan in Jharkhand on Monday. The poor run of country's top recurve archers Atanu Das and Deepika Kumari continued after the Olympian couple failed to make the Asian Games squad recently.
Both Das and Kumari along with top compound archer Abhishek Verma made early exits.
Olympian Pravin Jadhav clinched the gold in recurve men's category, thrashing his Services and Tokyo Olympic teammate Tarundeep Rai 6-0 in the final. Maharashta's Parth Salunkhe finished third getting past Jharkhand's Mrinal Chouhan 6-0.
Jharkhand's Ankita Bhakat picked her second gold in recurve women's event in as many ranking meets this season defeating her statemate Komalika Bari 7-3 in the summit clash. Monika Soren of Railways clinched the bronze beating Haryana's Sangeeta 7-3.
Das, who qualified as top-ranked player, was dumped out by Chouhan in the first of the elimination round as the Kolkata boy went down in a tie-break after both the archers were tied 5-5. His wife Deepika got past Rajasthan's Pallavi Chouhan in the first of the elimination round after qualifying third, but lost to Railways' Soren in the next round, also in a tie-break.
None of the four men's compound archers who made the Asian Games squad could manage a podium finish. Delhi boy Verma lost out in the first elimination round losing to Maharashtra's Ojas Deotale 146-149. Another India archer Rajat Chauhan, who won gold in the first ranking tournament, lost to Maharashtra's Prathamesh Fuge in the second round of the elimination stage. In an all-Maharashtra final, Prathamesh Jawkar defeated Fuge 149-145 to win the gold while Haryana's Rishabh Yadav claimed the bronze beating Deotale 145-141.
The women's compound gold was claimed by Rajasthan's Priya Gurjar, who beat Madhya Pradesh's Muskan Kirar 145-144. Telangana's Taniparthi Chikitha came third.
