Archery World Cup: Dhiraj Bommadevara loses bronze medal playoff despite beating Olympic champion in the quarterfinal

Dhiraj Bommadevara, who raised hopes by defeating two-time Olympic champion Kim Woo-Jin 6-2, lost his next two matches and returned empty-handed from the Archery World Cup final on Monday.

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Dhiraj, who made his debut at the World Cup Final in Mexico, had defeated world number two archer Woo-Jin of Korea in the quarter-finals. The 22-year-old Army archer, however, lost 1-7 (28-28, 27-30, 28-30, 28-29) to Lee Woo Seok of South Korea. In the third-place playoff, he lost to Medellin World Cup winner Mauro Nespoli of Italy 6-5 (29-30, 27-27, 25-29, 27-26, 27-28). Dhiraj was the lone Indian men's recurve archer at the Archery World Cup Final.

Earlier, in April, Dhiraj delivered an impressive performance at the Archery World Cup Stage 1 by winning a silver medal with the men's recurve team event and then by claiming a bronze medal in the individual recurve event is a remarkable feat. He claimed two more medals this year.

Meanwhile, India won the only silver medal of the Archery World Cup tournament. This was won by Prathamesh Samadhan Jawkar in the compound category. He lost in the shoot-off against Mathias Fullerton of Denmark in Mexico. With this runner-up finish, Prathamesh became only the second Indian male archer to win a silver medal at the World Cup Final. Despite sending a five-member squad to the last final of the World Cup season, India however won only one medal.

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Jayanta Talukdar is the only male recurve archer to win a medal in the Archery World Cup final. He achieved this feat in Edinburgh 13 years ago. While Dola Banerjee won the gold medal in the women's recurve category in Dubai in 2007. At the same time, women's recurve archer Deepika Kumari has won four silver medals in various Archery World Cup finals.