Thursday was a satisfactory day for India’s men and women archers at the World Archery Championships in Copenhagen. Mangal Singh Champia ensured an individual Olympic quota berth for India and Rajat Chauhan and Laxmirani Majhi remained in the gold and bronze medal contention in the prestigious tournament. While Rajat Chauhan entered the final in the compound section, Laxmirani came close to earning the Bronze in the individual recurve for women. Three days, ago Laxmirani was among the three Indian women, who earned the Olympic berth for their country in the 2016 Rio Games.
In the compound section, the 2014 Asian Games team gold medalist Rajat Chauhan simply thrashed Colombia’s Camilo Cardona of Colombia in a nearly one-sided semifinal, which ended at 143-138 in the Indian’s favor. On Saturday, Chauhan will clash with Denmark’s Stephen Hansen in the final. But Chauhan’s progress to the final was not easy. His toughest challenge came against Australia’s Robert Timms in the round-of-sixteen. Both players were locked 145-145 until the fifth set. The stalemate continued in the shoot-off and Chauhan was adjudged winner only because his arrow was closer to the center. Then in the quarterfinal, Chauhan had another tough opponent in Canada’s Kevin Tataryn, whom the Indian edged out 146-143.
Laxmirani Majhi kept Indian flag flying high in the individual recurve section with straight set victory Kristine Esebua of Georgia in the fourth round. In the quarterfinal, Laxmirani faced Mexico’s fifth seed Alejandra Valencia. In one of tournament’s big upsets, Laxmirani defeated Valencia 9-8 in the tense quarterfinal shoot off. But Laxmirani lost in the semifinal to top seed Shih-Chia Lin of Taipei after a hard-fought battle and had to be content with the bronze medal play-off. Earlier, Laxmirani’s teammate and former world no.1 Deepika Kumari had crashed out in her first match.