National Games, Archery | Sangeeta’s controlled performance helps her claim recurve women’s individual and team gold medals

Sangeeta gave a controlled performance to claim recurve women’s individual and team gold medals in the National Games at the Sanskardham archery ground here on Thursday.

The 22-year-old Sangeeta’s performance helped her team Haryana to secure four of five gold medals on offer in the recurve division. Haryana also bagged the men’s team and mixed team crowns.

On a cloudy and comparatively pleasant day, Sangeet, hailing from Hisar, defeated young Jharkhand archer Anshika Singh 6-2 (28-25, 26-23, 24-25, 28-26) in the individual final to emerge as the champion. Simranjeet Kaur bagged the bronze medal.

“I just focused on winning the gold medal. There was some wind, but I controlled my shooting and got good scores,” said Sangeeta.

Bhajan Kaur, Preeti, Sangeeta and Avani of Haryana after winning the women’s team recurve gold at the 36th National Games Gujarat 2022 in Ahmedabad on October 6, 2022. (Source: Vijay Soneji)

Later, Sangeeta joined hands with Bhajan Kaur and Preeti to beat the star-studded Jharkhand trio of Komalika Bari, Ankita Bhakat and Dipti Kumari 5-4 (shoot-off 28-27) in a closely-fought women’s team summit clash. The bronze went to host Gujarat.

Akash and Bhajan pipped Maharashtra’s Gaurav Lambe and Charuta Kamalpur 5-4 (shoot-off 19-16) for the top honour in the mixed team event. Jharkhand finished third.

Haryana got the men’s team title as well. Services could not compete in the final as one of its team members, Olympian Pravin Jadhav, was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday because of dengue.

Atanu Das (West Bengal) who won the men’s recurve individual gold at the 36th National Games Gujarat 2022 in Ahmedabad on October 06, 2022. (Source: Vijay Soneji)

Atanu Das shone amid Haryana archers’ dominance as the Olympian beat a seasoned rival and last edition’s silver medallist Gurucharan Besra 6-4 (27-27, 28-27, 27-28, 28-28, 29-27) in a keenly-contested final to win his maiden recurve men’s individual crown.

Defending champion Tarundeep Rai picked up the bronze.

Atanu, who went through a process to ‘upgrade’ his game, and last edition’s silver medallist Besra shared honours in the first set (27-27). Atanu won the next (28-27), but Besra returned the favour (28-27) to level the set scores 3-3.

The two split points in the fourth set (28-28) before Atanu raised the bar by shooting two 10s, including the only ‘bulls eye’ shot of the match, and a 9 to win the set (29-27) and the match.