Overview
- Dhiraj Bommadevara won the men’s recurve title on Sunday in Saltillo, Mexico, defeating Japan’s Nakanishi Junya 6-5 in a five-set match and sealing the win with a 10-9 single-arrow shoot-off.
- He reached the final by beating Turkey’s Berkim Tumer 7-1 in the quarterfinals and France’s Jean-Charles Valladont 7-1 in the semifinals after qualifying for the eight-archer World Cup Final by winning Stage 3 in Antalya.
- The 25-year-old Indian Army archer is ranked World No. 10 and produced near-flawless scoring under pressure in the final set to force the shoot-off and then hit a perfect 10 to take gold.
- The victory is the first World Cup Final gold for an Indian male recurve archer and ends a 16-year gap since Jayanta Talukdar’s 2010 bronze, putting Dhiraj alongside Dola Banerjee and Deepika Kumari in India’s World Cup history.
- He will travel directly to Japan to lead India’s recurve campaign at the Asian Games, a send-off that gives the team momentum and raises expectations for medal contention at the continental event.