Indian archers win two gold, one silver in Asian Grand Prix

Bangkok: Indian archers won two gold and one silver in team events in the ongoing 1st Asian Grand Prix Archery Championships in Bangkok on Thursday.

Compound women team of Gagandeep Kaur, V Jyothi Surekha and P Lily Chanu defeated Iran in the final team event and took the first gold for the country by a good margin of 15 points (219 vs 204). They eliminated Taipei team (224 vs 220) in the semi-final and Lao (224 vs 214) in the quarter-final.

Recurve men trio of Jayanta Talukdar, Tarundeep Rai and Kapil clinched the gold by thrashing Taipei in a one-sided final (6-0) in set system. The Indian combination reached the final after victories over Japan in the semi-final and Malaysia in the quarter-final.

In compound men section, Indian team of Abhishek Verma, Sandeep Kumar and Rajat Chouhan missed out on a gold narrowly against Iran. They lost 227-232 against Iran in the final to bag a silver.

Recurve women team lost to Japan in the bronze medal match.

Archery Association of India president V K Malhotra praised the players for their impressive performance.

"We are proud of our archers' performance in the first event of calendar year. The way they performed in the Asian Grand Prix gives us hope that they will earn good number of medals in other international competitions lined up this year and most importantly, Incheon Asian Games 2014 which is just six months away," he said.