Indian compound teams make Asian Games finals

India’s compounders shot their way to both the men’s and women’s team finals at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, as Chinese Taipei got to both recurve gold medal matches, and Korea made all four.

“We are all happy to be finalists. Our emotions are very strong and we are focused and geared up for the finals,” said Indian man Abhishek Verma.

“We were expecting us to be in the finals. We’ve both performed well at the past two Asian Championships and we were determined to be in the finals.”

With the compound competition in Jakarta limited to just team and mixed team events – no individual – making both these finals is a success. The Indian team invested heavily in preparing for the event, working with Italian international Sergio Pagni in the lead-up.

“For us, every tournament is big. Just like for every tournament, we have put in our full efforts to get through this tournament. We worked on ourselves day and night,” said Verma.

The work had already paid off, with India’s compound women being named world number one earlier in the summer.

In Jakarta, the second-seeded women beat Indonesia in the quarterfinals and then Chinese Taipei, 225-222, in the semifinals to set up the final with Korea.

India’s men – who also seeded number two – scraped through a quarterfinal against the Philippines, winning that match by just a point, before beating Chinese Taipei by four in the semifinals.

The gold medal matches will not be easy, with Korea’s compound teams being top seeds and the highest-scoring trios in matchplay.

Both recurve team finals in Jakarta will be contested by Korea and Chinese Taipei, which arrived at the tournament as the two top ranked teams in the world.

The archery competitions at the 2018 Asian Games take place on 21-28 August in Jakarta, Indonesia.

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