Deepika bags sixth Archery World Cup Final medal with silver in Mexico

Tlaxcala (Mexico), Oct 21
Indian archer Deepika Kumari added sixth World Cup Final medal to her kitty with a silver in the Archery World Cup Final after a 0-6 loss to China's Li Jiaman in the final here. The 2010 Commonwealth Games champion had performed strongly in the quarter and semi-finals as she thrashed Li’s Chinese teammate Yang Xiaolei 6-0 before knocking out eventual bronze medallist Alejandra Valencia 6-4 on her home turf.

"It’s an honour to be part of this World Cup, to win this World Cup. Now, I’m going to work even harder after that," Deepika said.

Meanwhile, Li won the finale of archery’s premier international circuit on her first attempt which features eight of the best archers from each event (compound and recurve) per gender who qualify either from winning one of three World Cup stages in the year or their world ranking.

“The first match was relatively tense and the last two felt like a little bit more of a challenge,” said Li on her differences in between matches. “I was still doing my best but I wasn’t as nervous as I was in the first match.

“I was just trying to get the best arrows out. I wasn’t thinking too much about winning or losing."

The five-member Indian team including three compound and two recurve archers concluded their campaign with one medal in the season-ending tournament.