Archery World Cup 2021: Top five records created at the tournament

It was a memorable event for Indian archers as they won a total of four medals

The recently concluded first stage of the Archery World Cup proved to be a success for India. Indian archers were completely dominant, making it a memorable tournament for the nation.

For many archers, this was the perfect platform to test their mettle ahead of the Tokyo Olympics. Here are the five records that were created at the event:

5. Guatemala City becomes only the second Central American city to host the event

Over the years, the Archery World Cup has been staged across the world. The inaugural edition of the World Cup in 2006 witnessed San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, playing hosts for Stage 3 of the tournament.

Guatemala City joins the illustrious list, with the capital and largest city of Guatemala becoming only the second city from Central America to host the Archery World Cup. More than 130 archers competed at the Sport Complex Los Arcos which is very close to the international airport.

4. Spain win maiden World Cup gold

The Spanish team made history in the recurve men’s team final. Miguel Alvarino Garcia, Daniel Castro and Pablo Acha took their country’s first gold medal in the 15-year history of the event on the Hyundai Archery World Cup by beating the USA, 6-2.

The sixth seed after qualifications, Spain was dominant against the top-seeded USA line-up of reigning World Archery Champion Brady Ellison, Josef Scaraboro and Matthew Requa, sweeping the first two sets to take a 4-0 lead they never relinquished. 

Spain shot its lowest set of the match in the third, a 51-pointer, but followed up with a sweet 57 to close the contest out by 6-2. Acha shot an excellent 10 to finish and had tears in his eyes as he stepped off the line. As a result, Spain managed to create a bit of history.

3. Deepika Kumari secures a record third individual gold medal for India

India's leading archer Deepika Kumari rewrote the history books after winning her third individual women's recurve gold on Sunday. No Indian had previously managed three individual World Cup golds, with Kumari getting past both Dola Banerjee and Jayanta Talukdar.

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Banerjee had claimed back-to-back wins when she clinched gold in 2007 at Dover, United Kingdom and in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Jayanta Talukdar won the men's individual recurve events there, in the year 2006 and 2009.

Kumari had earlier secured victories in the individual women's recurve event at Antalya, Turkey in 2012 and Salt Lake City, United States in 2018.

2. Atanu Das becomes only the third Indian man to win an individual World Cup gold

It was a career-defining event for Atanu Das in Guatemala City. By winning the men's individual recurve event, the 29-year-old became only the third Indian man to clinch an individual World Cup gold as a result.

Jayanta Talukdar was the first Indian man to achieve this feat. Abhishek Verma clinched a gold in the men's compound individual event in Stage 3 of the Archery World Cup, held in Wroclaw, Poland.

This was Das' first major international individual honour, with the Indian well and truly gearing up ahead of Tokyo 2020

1. India's best showing at the Archery World Cup

Ever since the Archery World Cup was started in 2006, the Indians had never managed a more successful single-stage outing. The Indian group of archers brought home four medals in total, with three of them being gold and one bronze.

Deepika Kumari and Atanu Das topped their respective individual recurve events. In addition to that, the Indian women's recurve team, comprising of Kumari, Ankita Bhakat and Komolika Bari, also managed to clinch the top prize. Das and Bhakat enhanced India's medal tally by claiming a podium finish in the mixed recurve team event.

India, thus,finished top, ahead of both Mexico and United States who both had two gold medals each to their name. Onwards and upwards for the Indian archery team!

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