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The India men's compound archery team comprising of Abhishek Verma, Aman Saini and Rajat Chauhan on Saturday registered a comeback win over France by two points in an intense finish to win their second consecutive gold medal in the Archery World Cup. In a repeat of the Stage 1 final, the Men in Blue were trailing against the French in the first two ends.
But in the third end, the triplet had an incredible performance as they had a 232-230 win over their French opponents in Adrien Gontier, Jean Philippe Boulch and Qentin Baraer to win the World Cup Stage 2 gold.
After their win, the trio of Abhishek Verma, Aman Saini and Rajat Chauhan celebrated with the famous Pushpa action. The picture of them doing Allu Arjun's Pushpa action has gone viral.
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In the last World Cup final at Antalya in April, the same Indian trio had once again taken down France by one point. This was Indian archer Abhishek Verma’s second medal as he with Avneet Kaur defeated the better-seeded duo of Amircan Haney and Ayse Bera Suzer from Turkey 156-155 to win the bronze in the mixed team event.
The Indian team entered the final against France after defeating tournament favourites South Korea. The semi-finals were tied after the regulation rounds, both teams were tied at 233-233. However, the trio of Verma, Saini and Chauhan outdid themselves as they had an incredible performance as they won the tie-breaker shoot-off 29-26.
Before facing South Korea, India defeated the world number one USA 234-228 in the quarterfinals. But unfortunately, the Indian women’s team suffered a two-point 228-230 loss against South Korea in the semifinals. Then the trio of Avneet Kaur, Muskan Kirar, and Priya Gurjar bounced back to attain a bronze medal by defeating Turkey 232-231.
The Indian women’s team got a bye into the quarterfinals and then defeated Chinese Taipei 228-226. After the semi-final defeat, Priya Gurjar talked about how the team is proud of their performance and assured their fans to win the gold medal in the next tournament. “We feel very good. It’s a proud moment for our country. The wind is very tricky so we tried to shoot our best. At the next stage, we will try to go for gold.”