In a pioneering effort,the Indian women archers won their maiden team medal,a bronze,after losing a thrilling semifinal battle to World and Olympic Champions South Korea which was decided by a shootout at the Aoti range here on Sunday. The trio of Deepika Kumari,a gold medal winner in last month's Commonwealth Games,Dola Banerjee and Rimil Buriuly lost the tense semifinal shootout to the Koreans 26-29 after being level on points (221 each) in the four regulations sets. Later in the bronze medal play-off the Indian women's threesome subdued a strong challenge from Chinese Taipei 218-217 to clinch a historic first team medal in the bow and arrow game in the Games history. The Indian women rattled the Koreans with their never-say-die attitude and matched them arrow for arrow and even led the World champions at one stage before falling by the wayside finally. In the semis,the Koreans won the opener 56-54 only for the Indians to clinch the next 56-54 and then led the favourites by two points by clinching the third set 57-55. However,the Indian women failed to apply the knock-out punch and lost the fourth set 54-56 to lead to the tie-break after both teams were level at 221 points each. In the shootout,the more experienced Koreans,shot 9,10 and 10 while the Indians replied with 9,8 and 9 and lost the battle. The Indians,however,denied there was any extra pressure on them. There was no pressure. We were shooting normally and confidently, said teenaged archer Deepika.The unseeded Koreans traded points with their opponents in the first game,but pulled away midway through the second to win 21-19,21-14. Zhang and Zhao committed key errors by hitting the shuttle out of bounds and misjudging incoming shots to the perimeter that dropped just inside the line. Bronze medals go to Taiwans Chen Hung-ling and Cheng Wen-hsing,and Chinas He Hanbin and Ma Jin. Wrestlers win bronze Indian wrestlers started their campaign impressively with Ravinder Singh and Sunil Kumar Rana clinching bronze medals in their respective weight categories in the Greco-Roman style here on Sunday. Even though Ravinder could not repeat his Commonwealth Games gold-medal winning effort,he opened Indias account in wrestling by winning a bronze in the 60kg category and then another Delhi Games gold medallist Rana doubled the joy with another bronze in the 66kg. While CWG gold medallist Ravinder defeated Muhammad Aliansyah of Indonesia 9-3 in the repechage to bag the bronze,Rana got the better of Sutep Oomchompoo of Thailand 4-2 to register his name in the medals tally.
