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Sunday, Apr 05, 2009
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Bad day for Indians

Only Dola Banerjee and Reena Kumari prevented a complete washout

KOLKATA: Indian archers stumbled when it mattered most on Friday in the archery World Cup (Stage 1) at Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.

Only Dola Banerjee and Reena Kumari prevented a complete washout. The two losing semifinalists in the women’s recurve individual Olympic round will compete for the bronze.

Fourth-seeded Dola Banerjee and 11th-seeded Reena Kumari were beaten in the semifinals by Alison Williamson of Great Britain (101-95) and world champion Natalia Valeeva of Italy (111-104) respectively.

Ratan stuns Cousins

Despite the depressing show, Kh. Ratan Singh lifted the spirits in the Indian camp with a stunning defeat of one of the world’s leading compound archers, Dave Cousins of the U.S. In a high scoring contest, the Indian scored a world class 117 to Cousins’ 114.

Second-seeded Mangal Singh Champia lost in the quarterfinals to Simon Terry of Great Britain 112-114, while the other three went out in men’s recurve pre-quarterfinals.

Top-seeded Rahul Banerjee lost to 48th ranked, Athens Olympic champion from Italy, Marco Galiazzo 108-112.

Fifth-seeded Crispin Duenas of Canada ousted 12th-ranked Jayanta Talukdar 105-102, while 16th-seeded Kapil was eliminated by fourth seed Juan Rene Serrano of Mexico 108-112.

In the compound section, Chungda Sherpa lost in the quarterfinals to Braden Gellasthien of the U.S. 114-115, while C. Srither lost in the pre-quarterfinals.

Jhano Hansdah, Bheigyabati Chanu and Manjudha Soy lost to higher-ranked rivals in the pre-quarterfinals of the women’s compound event. Vrushali Gorle was out in the opening round. Rahul Banerjee and Bombayla Devi failed to make it to the podium in the recurve mixed team event.

The top-seeded Indian duo lost to fourth-ranked Italian pair of Ilario di Buo and Natalia Valeeva 141 (18)-118 (19) and in the bronze medal play-off the pair lost to the French pair of Romain Girouille and Berengere Schuh at 140 (17)-140 (19), both contests going to the tie-breaker.

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