Indian archers Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Ojas Deotale won the gold medal of the compound mixed team event of Asian Games after beating South Korea’s So Chae-won and Joo Jaehoon in the final in Hangzhou (China) on Wednesday.
Jyothi-Ojas won in a thrilling finale which ended in their favour with a scorline of 159-158.
With this India’s medals tally has risen to 71 – their best ever in Asian Games history. India have so far won 16 gold, 26 silver and 29 bronze medals.
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Earlier in the morning, Jyothi and Ojas entered the gold medal clash with a 159-154 win over Kazakhstan. The Indian duo had just one ‘9’ and the rest were all ’10s’ in the semifinals against the Kazakh pair of Adel Zhexenbinova and Andrey Tyutyun.
The Indians held their nerve to beat Malaysia 158-155 in the quarterfinals before.
The Indian pair had a strong start to take a 40-39 lead but in the second-end both of them dropped two points as the Malaysian pair of Mohd Juwaidi Bin Mazuki and Fatin Nurfatehah Mat Salleh bounced back to draw level.
Reigning senior world champion Deotale, who was taking the first shot for India, missed the 10-ring by millimetres in the second end to put pressure on her senior teammate Jyothi.
The multiple World Cup gold medallist Jyothi also faltered to concede the second end to their rivals by one-point (38-39).
But the duo showed grit to come up with all 10s while shooting first in the third end as a strong Mohd Juwaidi dropped his first-point of the day that helped India regain the lead (118-117).
In the deciding fourth end, the Malaysian shot first and put pressure with back-to-back 10s but the Indian duo held their composure and responded in style with as many 10s.
It was Jyothi’s arrow that was bang on target, proving to be decisive as in the next shot the 32-year-old Fatin Nurfatehah hit the red-ring for an 8 to concede the match to the Indians.
The Indian archers had on Tuesday confirmed three medals to match their best-ever feat of Incheon 2014 at the continental showpiece.
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