Chandigarh, November 5
City archer Guncha Ashri today won gold medal in the Olympic fight of the recurve category at the 42nd NTPC Junior (men and women) National Archery Championship at Panaji in Goa. The 19-year-old archer defeated Ridhi of Haryana, a World Cup gold medallist, (6-2) to bag the top position.
It was a double delight for Guncha as she, along with Gurmehar Kaur Grewal, Srishti Jaiswal and Tejinder Kaur, earlier won the team bronze, first for the city, in the recurve category. The city team defeated Jharkhand archers (6-2) to romp home. The Haryana team won gold, while Madhya Pradesh eves bagged silver in the event.
Divyansh Kumar, another archer from the city, settled for in the individual recurve Olympic fight as he went down to Parth Sushank Salunke of Maharashtra (10-9) in a nail-biting one shot tiebreaker.
Anurag Kamal, who coaches Guncha, Divyansh and Gurmehar at GKM Archery Academy in Sector 39 here, said city archers winning medals at the national level was just a step towards the Olympics goal they had on their minds and in their hearts.
