Ankita Bhakat stuns Olympics medalist; Bags first-ever recurve individual Asian title

Ankita Bhakat created history in Dhaka by becoming India's first-ever individual Asian Champion in recurve archery at the Asian Archery Championships in Bangladesh, on Friday.

She stunned the Paris Olympics silver medalist Nam Su-hyeon of South Korea in the final, 7-3, to bag the women's recurve individual gold medal.

In the semi-finals, she had a comparatively tougher outing and just survived a scare against her senior compatriot Deepika Kumari on a shoot-off.

For Deepika, it was another setback in the bronze medal match, losing one more match on a shoot-off against fellow countrywoman Sangeeta, who clinched the bronze medal.

On the other hand, Dhiraj Bommadevera has become the first-ever male recurve Individual Asian Champion, beating his compatriot Rahul in the men's recurve final.

Both Dhiraj and Ankita missed a close medal at the Paris Olympics, finishing 4th in the mixed team event, which could have been India's first-ever archery medal at the Olympics.

And now, a year later, both of them redeemed themselves to become the first-ever Individual Asian Champions for India.

Indian Men's Team ended 18-year wait for Gold

The Indian men's recurve team records a historic win against South Korea to win the gold medal 

The trio of Yashdeep Bhoge, Atanu Das and Rahul edged past top-seeded South Korea on a shootoff, 5-4, to end India's 18-year drought of men's recurve team gold medal.

This was India's just third men's team title at Asian Championships, and uniquely, for the second consecutive time, there was an 18-year gap in two recurve teams' titles from 1989 to 2007 and now in 2025.

Close shoot-off win

The final had a pretty close start as both teams tied the first two sets with the same score of 56 from both teams, levelling the match at 2-2.

But then India had a poor third set, scoring just 51 in reply to Korea's 57. However, they quickly find their radar and shot 57 in the final set to force a shoot-off.

In the shoot-off, Korea took an early lead of 20-19, but then India made a comeback for the second time when Korea's Jiho Jang shot a 9 on Korea's final shot.

Then, the experienced archer Atanu Das shot a 10 to finish the shootoff round tied at 29 apiece, with India winning the gold on the virtue of a shot closer to the centre.

With this, the Indian archers ended the tournament with their best-ever performance of 10 medals, having 6 gold, 3 silver and a bronze medal to top the medal tally.

List of Indian Medalists at 2025 Asian Archery Championships

• Gold - Dhiraj Bommadevera - Men's Recurve
• Gold - Ankita Bhakat - Women's Recurve
• Gold - Jyothi Surekha Vennam - Women's Compound
• Gold - Indian Men's Recurve Team
• Gold - Indian Women's Compound Team
• Gold - Indian Mixed Compound Team
• Silver - Prithika Pradeep - Women's Compound
• Silver - Rahul - Men's Recurve
• Silver - Indian Men's Compound Team
• Bronze - Sangeeta - Women's Recurve