Antalya: India stormed into the final of the men's recurve team event for the first time in nine years after registering three wins in the ongoing Archery World Cup Stage 1, here on Thursday. The trio of Atanu Das, B Dhiraj and Tarundeep Rai will face China in the gold medal clash on Sunday in pursuit of India's first World Cup gold medal in the men's recurve team event after 13 years.
The men's recurve team, which got a first-round bye after qualifying as the fourth seed, faced a stiff challenge to begin with as it defeated 13th seed Japan 5-4 with a 29-28 win in the shoot-off. The Indians shot two perfect 10 from three attempts (10, 10, 9) to seal the issue in the tie-breaker after both the teams were locked 4-4 (49-52, 57-52, 54-51, 52-57) following four sets of intense shooting.
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Thereafter, it was an easy sailing for the Indian trio that got past 12th seed Chinese Taipei and ninth seed Netherlands by identical 6-2 margins to set up a summit clash with second seed China. The Netherlands will take on Slovenia in the bronze play-off. It was an easy outing against Chinese Taipei as the Indian men's recurve team raced to 4-0 lead before sealing the issue 6-2 (55-54, 57-54, 51-53, 58-56) with four 10s including an X (closer to the centre).