World Archery Championship: Aditi Swami, Ojas Deotale won the title of compound world champion

Berlin: India’s Aditi Gopichand Swamy and Ojas Praveen Deotale won gold medals in the women’s and men’s individual compound events respectively at the World Archery Championships 2023, here on Saturday. India ended the Berlin archery competition with four medals – three gold and one bronze – . All the medals were won by compound archers. The 17-year-old Aditi, seeded sixth, defeated Andrea Becerra of Mexico 149-147 in the final to become the youngest archer to win an individual event at the senior world championships.

U18 world champion and world record holder Aditi beat second seed fellow Indian Jyoti Surekha Vennam 149-145 in the semi-finals to book her place in the final. Meanwhile, Jyoti Surekha Vennam won the bronze medal in the women’s individual compound event by defeating Turkey’s Ipek Tomaruk 150-146. Another Indian archer Preneet Kaur bowed out in the quarterfinals after losing to Jyoti Surekha Vennam. Later in the day, India’s Ojas Pravin Deotale emerged victorious in the men’s individual compound event.

Ojas beat Poland’s Lukasz Przybylski 150-149 in a closely contested match to become the first Indian male archer to win a gold medal at the World Championships. The 21-year-old Ojas had earlier beaten former world champion Dutch archer Mike Schlosser and Przemyslaw Konecki of Poland in the semi-finals and quarters respectively. India’s campaign at the World Archery Championships 2023, which is the first Paris 2024 Olympic qualifier event for archers, came to an end on Saturday in Berlin. None of the Indian recurve archers made it to the medal round, failing to win any Olympic quota place for the proposed Paris 2024 Olympics in Berlin. Only recurve archery events are held in the Olympics.