Deepika Kumari equals world record in recurve event at Archery World Cup

Deepika Kumari on Wednesday equalled the world record in the women’s recurve event before helping the country to the mixed pair bronze medal play-off in the first stage of the Archery World Cup that got underway in Shanghai.

The former world no. 1 and winner of two Commonwealth Games gold medals shot 686 in the 72-arrow ranking round to equal the feat of London Olympics gold medallist Ki Bo Bae of Korea.

Ki Bo Bae, who had won two gold medals at the London 2012 Olympics in the individual and team competition, had erased an 11-year-old world record when she got past fellow Korean Park Sung-Hyun’s 682 at qualification of the Universiade in Gwangju, South Korea in 2015. Deepika set the range ablaze shooting 346 in the first half and needed just 341 to get past the Korean but two 9s in the last end meant the 2015 record remained intact.

The top seed Deepika will now play round three of last 32 directly, while team mate Laxmirani Majhi who ranked a poor 45th and Rimil Buriuly (75th) will begin from Round One. The women’s team are ranked fourth.

Deepika’s effort also enabled India to get a top ranking in the mixed pair as she partnered the 12th ranked Atanu Das (671 points) to defeat Turkey 5-3 in the first round of eight.

In the semi-finals, the pair lost to fourth ranked Chinese Taipei 3-5 and will face third seeds Korea in the bronze medal play-off.

Korea were blanked 0-6 by the second-ranked USA in the other semi-final. In the men’s recurve qualification, Atanu Das, Jayanta Talukdar and Mangal Singh Champia finished among the top 20 to hand the team a third place.