Essen [Germany], July 26 : India's compound mixed team archery of Parneet Kaur and Kushal Dalal went on to clinch their first gold medal at the FISU World University Games 2025 on Friday.
The same event will feature at the Los Angeles 2028 Summer Games with compound archery set for its Olympic debut.
The Indian pair scored an impressive 157 to edge out the Republic of Korea's Park Yerin and Seunghyun Park by three points in a closely fought final, as per Olympics.com.
The South Korean team led 78-77 at the halfway mark, but the Indian duo steadily pulled ahead over the final two stages.
This was India's third compound archery medal at the 2025 World University Games, held in Rhine-Ruhr.
In the compound men's team final, the Indian trio of Kushal Dalal, Sahil Rajesh Jadhav and Hritik Sharma narrowly missed out on gold, going down 232-231 to Turkiye's Batuhan Akcaoglu, Yunus Emre Arslan and Yakup Yildiz.
India had led 117-114 at the halfway mark, but the Turkish trio stormed back in the third stage with a run of three 10s and three Xs, while India managed three 9s.
Meanwhile, the Indian women's compound team of Parneet Kaur, Avneet Kaur and Madhura Dhamangaonkar secured the bronze medal with a dominating 232-224 win over Great Britain.
With three medals secured in archery on Friday, India's medal tally at the World University Games rose to five.
Parneet Kaur and Kushal Dalal are also through to the semi-finals of the compound individual events and will aim to add to their medal haul on Saturday.
Kushal Dalal will take on compatriot Sahil Rajesh Jadhav in the semi-finals, while Parneet Kaur will be up against South Korea's Kim Sooyeon
The 32nd edition of the biennial FISU World University Games is being held from July 16 to 27 across six cities in Germany. Around 300 Indian athletes are competing, as per Olympics.com.
India's best-ever performance at the World University Games came in Chengdu 2023, where the country finished seventh overall with 26 medals, including 11 golds, eight of which came in shooting. However, shooting is not part of the World University Games 2025.
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor