A 14-year-old shot two perfect scores in two matches and knocked out a triple Asian Games gold medallist. That was the headline from Monday’s compound eliminations at the 20th Asian Games in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, where the archery field is now down to the last eight in each category and Los Angeles 2028 quota places are on the line.
Kang Yeonseo of Korea beat India’s Jyothi Surekha Vennam, the Hangzhou 2022 triple gold medallist, 150-146. Yeonseo is ranked 72 places below Vennam, the world number four. In doing so she became the first under-18 woman to shoot a perfect score in a 15-arrow match, six Xs among her 150. She then did it again in the round of 16, beating Mongolia’s Otgonbayar Dagdanjav 150-133.
That second match set a new under-18 world record for a compound women’s match. It beat the previous mark of 149, set by the USA’s Zoie Thompson at the Buckeye Classic in Dublin, Ohio, in 2021, and is pending ratification by World Archery. Yeonseo is the youngest member of the Korean senior team, and her debut World Cup season has already brought compound women’s team bronze in Madrid, alongside Park Jungyoon and Park Yerin.
Seeds hold, a champion falls
All four top seeds, Kang Chaeyoung, Liao Jiahao and the Indian pair Dhiraj Bommadevara and Chikitha Taniparthi, reached the quarterfinals. Not everyone of standing did. Korea’s second seed Kim Je Deok, a three-time Olympic gold medallist, lost 6-2 to Indian debutant Neeraj Chauhan in the recurve men’s individual event.
Chauhan joins Bommadevara among the eight recurve men still chasing Saturday’s individual final and the two LA28 quota places on offer. India’s trio of those two plus Yashdeep Bhoge also reached the recurve men’s team semifinal, where they meet Iran for a place in the final and the lone team quota available.
Six countries remain in the running for the two men’s individual spots: India and Bhutan with two archers each, plus Chinese Taipei, Uzbekistan, Korea and Japan. In recurve women, five nations are still in it: Korea, Chinese Taipei and China with two each, alongside India and Japan. India’s 17-year-old Kumkum Anil Mohod, making her Asian Games debut, reached the quarterfinals by beating Bangladesh’s Saima Salah Suddin 6-0.
The host nation’s hopes sit with world number 16 Junya Nakanishi and world number 72 Nanami Asakuno, in the men’s and women’s individual events respectively. Nakanishi was runner-up to Bommadevara at the World Cup Final in Saltillo two weeks ago. His first quarterfinal is against Chinese Taipei’s Tang Chih-Chun. Bommadevara faces Amirkhon Sadikov of Uzbekistan, and Chauhan meets Bhutan’s Lam Dorji. The compound team and mixed team finals follow on Wednesday.
