Parneet Kaur and Kushal Dalal strike India’s first gold in WUG2025
Parneet Kaur and Kushal Dalal did not look a gift horse in its mouth and piled the pressure on South Korea to emerge deserving winners of the Mixed Compound Team gold in the Archery competitions in the FISU World University Games 2025 at the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex, a UNESCO World Heritage site, in the German town of Essen.
The Indians shot eight successive 10s while the Koreans succumbed to time pressure in the third end. India won 157-154 to cap a day on which its men and women’s compound teams won medals of different colours. The men let slip a one-point lead and lost the final to Turkiye 231-232 after the women won bronze medal with a 232-224 victory over Britain.
Anyone would have South Korea to win the Mixed Compound Team gold. Not only has its pair of archers shot incredibly through the competition – they had scored 159 twice and 158 once on the way to the final while India consistently scored 158 in each of its three matches – but also was leading by a point at the halfway stage.
In the third end, with the Indians shooting first, the Korean pair buckled under the pressure that winning can bring along. Park Yerin delayed releasing her first arrow and hit a 9. Her team-mate Seunghyun Park was rushed to complete his routine when his turn came and he contririved to hit an 8 with his arrow. Park Yerin found another 9 but Korea was left staring at a mountain.
Parneet Kaur and Kushal Dalal remained composed and logged 40 points in the third end to take a three-point lead. They kept their nerves under pressure and replicated the show in the fourth end to negate attempts by the Koreans to stage a comeback. It was a capital performance by the Indians.
Egged by coach Rahul Banerjee, both Parneet Kaur and Kushal Dalal raised their game and average when they teamed up for the gold medal match. Parneet Kaur had clocked 9.50 per arrow in the women’s final and improved to 9.75 in the afternoon while Kushal Dalal, whose 9.75 in the men’s final was not the best of the three Indians, raised it to 9.88 in the Mixed final.
The Compound Archery team helped India catapult from the 46th place overnight to 22nd. India now has a gold, a silver and three bronze medals. With Kushal Dalal and Sahil Rajesh Jadhav competing in a men’s Compound individual semifinals and with Parneet Kaur featuring in a women’s semifinal, the archers assure India that at least one if not three more medals.
The results:
Men Compound Team Final: India (Kushal Dalal, Sahil Rajesh Jadhav, Hritik Sharma) 231 lost to Turkiye (Batuhan Akcaoglu, Yunus Emre Arslan, YYakub Yildiz) 232.
Women Compound Team bronze medal match: India (Madhura Dhamangaonkar, Parneet Kaur, Avneet Kaur) 232 beat Britain (Chloe A’Bear, Hallie Boulton, Grace Chappel) 224.
Mixed Compound Team Final: India (Parneet Kaur and Kushal Dalal) 157 beat South Korea (Park Yerin and Seunghyun Park) 154.
