Babrekar wins Archery bronze for Maharashtra

Pune: Maharashtra’s Shukmani Babrekar rallied from the loss of the first set to defeat Rajasthan’s Jagdish Choudhary 6-2 for the Men’s Under-21 recurve bronze medal in the Khelo India Youth Games 2019 archery competition at the Army Sports Institute here on Saturday.

Rajasthan’s Karni Singh Chauhan and Punjab archer Amanpreet Kaur earned the boys and girls Uder-17 bronze medals respectively in the recurve action.

In the compound category, Haryana’s Sumit Kumar and Rishabh Yadav won the bronze medal play-offs, while the in girls Rajasthan took the honours through Swarna Jhawar and Priya Gurjar on a day when Youth Olympic Games recurve silver medallist Akash lost in the quarter-finals.

Another shocker came in the first round when Ankita Bhakat, who competed in the Asian Games, lost to Bhagyashri Kolte.

Recurve archers B. Dhiraj (Men’s Under-21) and Komolika Bari (Girls Under-17) were the only ones who topped the ranking rounds in their respective sections and went on to secure berths in the final.

The highlight of the day was a brave effort by Asian Games silver medallist Muskan Kirar of Madhya Pradesh, who shot despite shoulder muscle spasms to make it to Women’s Under-21 compound final.

Earlier, Riya Tewatia turned the tables on fancied Haryana team-mate Himani Kumari to win the Under-21 recurve bronze medal play-off.