Parth Salunkhe became the first male archer to win a gold medal in recurve at the Junior World Championships as India set an all-time tally of 11 medals.
Post Date – Monday, July 10 at 10:39am
Limerick: Parth Salunkhe became the first male archer to win a gold medal in recurve at the Junior World Championships as India set an all-time tally of 11 medals.
The 19-year-old from Satara, Maharashtra, added to the icing on the cake by beating South Korea in the men’s under-21 recurve individual final here on Sunday.
Top-ranked Salenke defeated seventh seed Song Yinjun 7-3 (26-26, 25-28, 28-26, 29-26, 28-26) in a fierce five-set fight.
India also claimed bronze in the Under-21 women’s recurve individual event, with Baja Kaur beating Chinese Taipei’s Su Xinyu 7-1 (28-25, 27-27, 29-25, 30-26). Team India topped the medal table with six golds, one silver and four bronzes.
But in terms of rankings, the South Korean team ranked second with six gold medals and four silver medals.
Indiana hit two perfect 10s and three 9s on its first six Arrows as Parth Salunkhe trailed 1-3. Just as South Korea displayed familiar dominance over India, former senior national champion Salenk fought back to seal the third set by two points with an arrow near the center (X) to tie the score It’s three draws.
Indiana was under a lot of pressure, and Salenk then hit two 10s and a 9 to take a 5-3 lead before finishing in style with two Xs. The son of a teacher, Salenk’s talents were first discovered by coach Pravin Savant in the post-pandemic period in 2021, becoming the first male archer to become a youth world champion.
After Sawant discovered his talent, Sarenkh was trained by Ram Avdesh at the SAI Center in Sonipat. In the women’s recurve event, Deepika Kumari was a cadet and junior world champion in 2009 and 2011, and her Jharkhand compatriot Komalika Bari in 2019 and 2021 have emulated the feat.
In total, Sarenke is the sixth Indian archer to win the world title in youth events. Compound archer Palton Hansda (2006) and the winning combination of Aditi Swami and Priyansh here are the other junior world champions.
Paz Salenk previously won a silver medal in the third stage of the Asian Cup in Singapore in June this year and two bronze medals at the same event in Sulaymaniyah and Sharjah last year. With the World Championships and Asian Games approaching, it remains to be seen whether Saleenh can qualify.
