Deepika Kumari moves closer to gold medal

Patna, September 2, 2010: Teenage sensation Deepika Kumari waltzed into the final of a senior international archery tournament at the World Cup Stage IV meet at Shanghai on Thursday. National champion Deepika, who is also the reigning cadet world champion, will play Ki Bo Bae of Korea for the gold medal.

According to information reached here, this is Deepika’s maiden final and second by an Indian women. Only Dola Banerjee has done it before winning the Dover World Cup in 2007.

Deepika, seeded 13th, defeated Wu Hui Ju of Chinese Taipei 6-0 in the semifinals and downed fifth seed Lorig Khatuna of the U.S in a close quarterfinal battle at 6-5.

Jayanta Talukdar too was in the threshold of making it to the final of the men’s individual recurve but failed to overcome Lee Chang-Hwan of Korea 2-6 in the semifinals. The Guwahati-born Tata Steel employee overcame Beijing Olympic Games gold medalist Viktor Ruban of Ukraine 6-4 in the quarterfinals. Talukdar is in fray for the bronze medal provided he quells the challenge of Athens Olympic Champion Marco Galiazzo of Italy.

Only three recurve archers, Tarundeep Rai, Rahul Banerjee and Dola Banerjee moved up to pre-quarterfinals before bowing out. Rai lost to Kim Woojin of Korea 2-4; Rahul Banerjee fell to Galiazzo 0-4 and Dola lost to Aida Roman of Mexico 3-4.

Mangal Singh Champia lost to Matthew Gary of Australia in the first round 4-2; L. Bombayla Devi and Rimil Buruily both fell in the first round.

In the compound division, National champion C. Srither and Chittibomma Jignas both went out in the first round while Ritul Chatterjee and Khuraijam Ratan Singh fell in the second round. The four women archers in this category were eliminated in the second round.