India’s Dhiraj Bommadevara gave his Asian Video games preparations a giant increase as he clinched a historic gold medal in males’s recurve occasion on the Archery World Cup Ultimate in Saltillo, Mexico, on Sunday.
After returning empty-handed from the 2023 and 2024 editions, Dhiraj, the 25-year-old archer from Vijayawada, defeated Japanese World Championships medallist Nakanishi Junya in a shoot-off within the summit conflict to grow to be the first-ever Indian man to win a gold medal in recurve on the Archery World Cup Ultimate. Every archer had one shot after the rating was tied at 5-5. Whereas Dhiraj shot a ten, Nakanishi might solely hit a 9.
Dhiraj additionally ended a 16-year watch for an Indian male recurve archer to complete on the rostrum. Jayanta Talukdar was the final male recurve archer to win a medal — a bronze in Edinburgh 2010.
Dola Banerjee stays the one different Indian to have received World Cup Ultimate gold, claiming the ladies’s particular person title within the 2007 version in Dubai.
Dhiraj and Nakanishi shared one level every after the primary set led to a 28-28 tie. The 27-year-old Japanese archer took a 3-1 lead as he clinched the second set 29-28. Nonetheless, the Indian received the following set with the identical scoreline in his favour to revive parity.
Nakanishi put the strain on Dhiraj by producing an ideal fourth set, together with two internal 10s. The Indian might solely rating 28.
Within the closing set, each archers began with a 9. Dhiraj took the lead as he shot a ten along with his second arrow whereas Nakanishi hit a 9 once more. The Indian shot a 9 which meant {that a} 10 would have been sufficient for Nakanishi to win the gold however he hit a 3rd consecutive 9.
Earlier, Dhiraj had taken down Frenchman Jean-Charles Valladont 7-1 (28-25, 28-28, 29-24, 29-28) within the semifinals after a 7-1 (28-25, 29-26, 28-28, 29-27) victory over Turkiye’s Berkim Tumer within the quartefinals. Each Valladont and Tumer are Olympic medallists.
(With inputs from PTI)
Printed on Sep 13, 2026