Stars flop, minnows save face
Having started the home tournament with an aim of grabbing as many as six out of nine gold medals on offer, hosts Bangladesh saw their hopes badly dashed as the two best archers of the country failed to get into medal contention in individual events on the second day of the 1st ISSF International Solidarity Archery Championship yesterday.
Bangladesh's two best archers, Ruman Sana and Shyamoli Roy, failed to win a medal, but unheralded Hira Moni and Bonya Akter saved some blushes for the hosts by getting into the finals of their respective events at the Maulana Bhasani Hockey Stadium yesterday.
Ruman, who had won a gold medal at the Asian Grand Prix in 2014, beat compatriot Durul Huda to enter the semifinals of the men's recurve bow event, but then lost consecutive matches against Bhutanese counterparts to bid goodbye to his medal hopes. The 23-year-old archer first lost against Nima of Bhutan in 6-2 sets in the semifinal before losing to Bhutan's Lam in 6-4 sets in the bronze medal deciding match.
The youngster said luck was not with him on Saturday. “It's a matter of small margins. I couldn't hold my composure today. I tried to play my natural game but luck was not on my side.”
Shyamoli, who represented the country as the lone archer in the Rio Olympics last year, did even worse than Roman as she failed to move past the quarterfinals. Shyamoli, the third seed, lost the women's quarterfinal of the recurve bow event in straight sets (6-0) against Azerbaijan's Gasimova, who went on to win the bronze medal by beating Bangladesh's Radia Akter Shapla.
However, Bangladesh's Hira Moni made it into the final, beating Shapla in the semifinal (6-2), Hira will compete against Ramozamova of Azerbaijan in the gold medal match on Monday.
Hira said she would try her best to win her first gold medal in any international tournament. “This will be my first international final, but I am not feeling any pressure. I participated in the SA Games last year but didn't win any medals. So I will try to do my best to win a gold here.”
The hosts will also be represented in the women's compound singles final by Bonya Akter, who will meet highly regarded Iraqi archer Fatimah in the final. Bonya beat compatriot Sushmita while Fatimah beat Bangladesh's Bipasa in the two semifinals.
Sushmita later went on to win the bronze medal in that event by beating Bipasa. The other bronze for the hosts came through Milon Molla, who beat Walid of Iraq in the third-place deciding rubber of men's compound singles.
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