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Indian ace archer Deepika Kumari marked her return to the international archery stage with a gold. Kumari bagged gold in the women’s individual recurve category at the Asia Cup 2024 archery stage 1 in Baghdad, Iran, on February 25. This was the first time that Deepika was playing on the global circuit since she gave birth to a baby girl in December 2023. This was also her first international contest since the Paris Archery World Cup in June 2022.
The three-time Olympian defeated Simranjeet Kaur 6-2 in an all-Indian final to win the individual recurve title. Earlier, Deepika led her side to win the India women’s recurve team gold medal against Uzbekistan. In the team final, Indian women defeated their rivals in the tie-breaker. The gold marked the third medal across all events. In November 2023, she won the recurve women’s gold at the National Games held in Goa.
In the men’s category, the Dhiraj Bommadevara, Pravin Ramesh Jadhav, and Tarundeep Rai trio took down Bangladesh 6-2 in a more comfortable outing. Furthermore, Dhiraj and Simranjeet also clinched gold in the mixed team recurve gold by ousting the Bangladeshi duo of Diya Siddique and Md Sagor Islam 6-0 in the final.
Complete list of Indian medal winners at Asia Cup 2024
- Prathamesh Jawkar, Priyansh and Kushal Dalal - gold medal (men’s compound team)
- Prathamesh Jawkar - gold medal (men’s compound individual)
- Kushal Dalal - silver medal (men’s compound team)
- Aditi Swami, Priya Gurjar and Parneet Kaur - silver medal (women’s compound team)
- Parneet Kaur - gold medal (women’s compound individual)
- Aditi Swami - bronze medal (women’s compound individual)
- Prathamesh Jawkar and Aditi Swami - gold medal (compound mixed team)
- Dhiraj Bommadevara, Pravin Ramesh Jadhav and Tarundeep Rai - gold medal (men’s recurve team)
- Dhiraj Bommadevara - gold medal (men’s recurve individual)
- Tarundeep Rai - silver medal (men’s recurve individual)
- Simranjeet Kaur, Deepika Kumari and Bhajan Kaur - gold medal (women’s recurve team)
- Deepika Kumari - gold medal (women’s recurve individual)
- Simranjeet Kaur - silver medal (women’s recurve individual)
- Simranjeet Kaur and Dhiraj Bommadevara - gold medal (recurve mixed team)
