Date:12/11/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/11/12/stories/2006111202441900.htm

Sport - Archery

India wins five golds

Special Correspondent

JAMSHEDPUR: India ended the second Commonwealth archery championship in a blaze of glory, picking up five of the six gold medals on the final day at the J.R.D. Tata Sports Complex here on Saturday.

Australia won two and New Zealand one. England, which figured in four finals, ended second best.

On a bright sunny day, India seemed to enjoy all the luck, winning at least three finals, all against England, by just one point.

In the individual women's recurve title, Dola Banerjee was lucky to tie the score at the end of 12 arrows at 103 against Naomi Folkard of England. In the one-arrow shoot-out to break the tie, Dola shot a perfect 10 as against her opponent's eight.

In another nerve-wrecking final in the men's recurve team event, the Indian team, comprising Mangal Singh, Vishwash and Tarundeep Rai, won the gold, edging England 215-214. The English trio shot better in the final end, but fell one point shot.

Reena sizzles

In the women's recurve team event, India won 201-200 against England. It was Reena Kumari who did the star turn in the final end when trailing 148-152. She put both her arrows on 10s to lift the team to victory.

In the compound men's individual event, top seed Stephen Thomas Clifton of New Zealand needed two shoot-offs to win against Andrew Ward of Scotland.

Chris Lewkowski of Australia, who made the semifinals owing to the disqualification of Jayanta Talukdar, took the men's recurve title beating Simon Needham of Scotland in a one-sided final (108-102).

Jhano Hansdah was instrumental in getting two gold medals. First she anchored the compound team's win over England (215-208) and then won the individual title at the expense of teammate Manjudha Soy (111-103).