India beat South Korea 5-3 to win maiden women's team recurve gold at Asian Games 2026
India beat South Korea 5-3 in the women's team recurve final at the Asian Games 2026 in Nagoya to claim the country's first gold in the event. The winning Indian trio was Ankita Bhakat, Kirti Sharma and Kumkum Anil Mohod.
South Korea had won 10 of the 12 women's team recurve titles since the event was introduced in 1978 and, according to the source, had not failed to win the title since 1998 until this result. India had previously taken bronze twice, in 2010 and 2022, both after semi-final defeats. At the previous Asian Games India finished fourth.
India reached the final after a 5-1 semi-final victory over China; a 51-51 tie in the third set provided the single point that settled that match. The semi-final score put the Indian side into the gold-medal match in Nagoya. The final proved similarly tight throughout.
The opening set of the final finished 54-54 after Korea began with a seven and Kirti Sharma also shot a seven with her fifth arrow, leaving India's final arrow requiring a ten, which it produced. The second set also ended level, 56-56, leaving both teams with points on the scoreboard.
The third set became the turning point. Korea's lineup of reigning world champion Kang Chaeyoung, Oh Yejin and Lee Yunji started the set with scores of eight, ten and nine; India answered with 10, 9 and 9 and led by a single point at the halfway mark. Korea then shot three consecutive eights to finish the set on 52 while India posted 55, taking the set and moving ahead 4-2.
A set win awards two points and a tie gives one point to each side, meaning India needed only a draw in the fourth set to secure gold. In that set Kirti Sharma and Ankita Bhakat each shot a nine and Kumkum Anil Mohod needed a ten, which she hit; one arrow was checked before the gold was confirmed and India closed out the final 5-3.
Ankita Bhakat, 28, was born in Kolkata, took up archery at 12 and joined the Tata Archery Academy in Jamshedpur in 2014; she won junior mixed team gold at the 2017 World Youth Championships with Jemson Singh Ningthoujam, beating Russia 6-2, won a team medal at the 2022 Asian Games and at the Paris Olympics she and Dhiraj Bommadevara lost the mixed-team bronze-medal match 2-6 to Germany. Kirti Sharma, born in 2007 from Ritoli village in Haryana’s Jind district, began archery sessions in Class 8, finished fifth in the January trials then topped the May trials ahead of Simranjit Kaur, Deepika Kumari and Bhakat, made her World Cup debut in Antalya in June and reached the mixed-team semi-finals in Madrid in July. Kumkum Anil Mohod, 17, from Maharashtra, made her Asia Cup debut in Bangkok in 2025 and in May won World Cup team gold in Shanghai with Bhakat and Deepika Kumari, beating South Korea and China; in June she took mixed team gold in Antalya with Bommadevara.
The victory lifted India past Bahrain into seventh place on the Asian Games medal table. India had never reached this event's final before this tournament.
