This was Deepika Kumari’s fifth World Cup Finals podium. (Source: Express Archive)
Deepika Kumari, who returned empty-handed from the recent Asian Games, finally had something to cheer about as India’s top-ranked recurve archer finished on the podium after clinching bronze at the World Cup finals in Samsun, Turkey, on Sunday. Deepika fought a tense duel against Germany’s Lisa Unruh, the Rio Olympics silver medallist, to win 6-5.
The match was locked at 5-5 after five ends, and consequently proceeded to a shoot-off. Here, both archers shot a 9, but the Indian prevailed as her arrow was closer to the centre.
The two-day season finale witnessed the top eight archers — from recurve and compound categories – battling it out for top honours. Depika had qualified for the final by winning gold at the World Cup in Salt Lake, USA, earlier this year.
The bronze is her fifth medal at the World Cup finals, after her silver medals in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2017. Deepika will savour this hard-fought win, as she came into this tournament without her coach Dharmendra Tiwari, who could not accompany her due to illness.
Despite her successes at World Cups and season finales, Deepika has not managed to maintain that form in some of the showpiece events, be it the Olympics or the Asian Games. Her performances at such big-ticket events have been largely erratic, and as a consequence a medal has continued to elude her.
Her third-place finish in Turkey will not mask her disappointing run at the Jakarta Asiad, where she promised a lot but failed to deliver — bowing out to Chinese Taipei’s Chien-Ying Li in the pre-quarters. Be it during the London Olympics in 2012, the Incheon Games in 2014, or the Rio Olympics two years ago, she consistently found ways to falter — much to the chagrin of her coaches and fans.
Tiwari has also been left looking for a definite answer. He believed it was just a case of “bad luck.” “I suppose so, because I really don’t think there’s any other reason as such. Ahead of the Asian Games, she was suffering from dengue. If you remember, she had even travelled two days after the team left for Jakarta. Her body was really weak and she was on medication,” he recalled.
If dengue hampered her chances in Jakarta, Tiwari reckoned it was a case of “peaking too early” , which led to her exit at the Rio Olympics two years ago. However, Tiwari denied that his ward suffered from big-stage jitters. “I don’t think that’s the reason. Pressure toh World Cups mein bhi rehta hain. I think it’s just that these events come once in every four years and you have to just tune yourself accordingly. Having said that, she is still India’s best recurve archer,” he argued.
Deepika’s case is even more baffling when you consider that there’s hardly any difference in the level of competition that’s on offer at World Cups as compared to the bigger events like Olympics and Asian Games. “Please don’t undermine the level of competition at the World Cups. The final in Turkey showcased the world’s eight best archers in both compound and recurve category,” Tiwari said.
Deepika, ranked eighth in the world, faced off against Germany’s Unruh, ranked three places higher than her in the bronze-medal play-off. She began the competition on an emphatic note, quelling World No. 9 Lei Chien-Ying of Chinese Taipei, who was her nemesis at the Asian Games. As Tiwari puts it: “It all goes down to the way you start in a particular tournament. Here, she managed to defeat Chien-Ying in her first match, and that got her going. Last month, this very opponent ended her Asian Games campaign.”
The Asian Games loss would have left Deepika gutted. “I will keep working hard for the tournaments ahead,” was how the distraught archer put it back then. Going forward, she will seek solace from her performance at the season finale. If anything, it will keep her in a good frame of mind for upcoming challenges.
Going by what Tiwari said, the 25-year-old is still India’s best bet in the recurve category, and the coach and his ward will need to sit down at the earliest to formulate a blue-print for the next big challenge: the 2020 Olympics.
Verma continues stellar run
Deepika’s exploits may have been the talking point on Sunday. But in the midst of this frenzy, Abhishek Verma, India’s ace compound archer, continued his impressive run to win two medals for India at the World Cup finals.
He first defeated South Korea’s Kim Jongho to clinch bronze, and then teamed up with Jyothi Surekha Vennam to bag silver in the mixed event, losing to the Turkish combination. Verma and Jyothi were instrumental in the Indian men’s and women’s teams winning silver medals at the Jakarta Asian Games.