Copenhagen, July 30 (IANS) Indian archer Rajat Chauhan will compete for the gold medal as he entered the final of the individual compound men’s event at the World Championships at the Sundby Idrettspark here on Thursday.
Women archer Laxmirani Majhi will fight for the bronze medal while compatriot Deepika Kumari failed to get past her Chinese opponent in the third round of the individual recurve event.
Rajat beat Canadian Kevin Tataryn in the quarter-finals 146-143. A confident Chauhan then breezed past Camilo Andres Cardona of Colombia in the semi-finals 143-138 to set up a final clash against Denmark’s Stephan Hansen.
In the women’s individual recurve, Laxmirani was steady from the outset in her pre-quarterfinal encounter with a 29-29 draw against China’s Jiaxin Wu in the first set. The Indian then went into top gear, clinching the second and the third sets 27-26 and 29-23.
Wu put up a fight in the fourth by clinching it by a point (28-27). But by then Laxmirani was well settled and did not yield under pressure as she took the fifth set 28-27 and with it the contest 7-3.
In the quarter-final, it was a thriller for the Indian as she edged past her Mexican rival Valencia Alejandra 9-8 in the tie-breaker.
After a stalemate 27-27 in the first set, Laxmirani lost the second 28-29. The third was again pocketed by the Indian 28-27 while Alejandra came back to take the fourth set 28-27. Laxmirani clinched the last set 29-28 to made it 5-5 and then finally bagged the tie breaker to take the game 6-5.
However, in the semi-final Laxmirani had to face Chinese Taipei’s Shih-Chia Lin, who ousted the Indian 4-6. But it was a close contest with four sets of stalemate.
The scoreline read 28-28, 26-26, 28-26, 27-27, 27-27.
Laxmirani will now face Misun Choi of South Korea in the bronze medal clash on August 2.
Former World No.1 Deepika, on the other hand, lost to Yuhong Qi of China 6-4. However, it was the Indian who took the first set 29-27. Qi rallied back to take the second 27-26.
Deepika made merry in the third, coming back strongly to pocket it 28-25 but then lost her momentum to give away her 4-2 advantage as she lost the last two sets 25-26 and 26-27.