Archery World Cup 2023 stage 3: Abhishek Verma clinches individual gold medal in compound archery

Medellin [Colombia], June 18 (ANI): India's compound archer Abhishek Verma clinched a gold medal at the Archery World Cup 2023 stage 3 in Medellin, Colombia on Saturday.
The 33-year-old Abhishek Verma defeated the 2019 world champion James Lutz of the USA 148-146 in a thrilling final.
This is Abhishek Verma's third individual gold medal in the Archery World Cup, and his first after two years as he won the last gold medal in Paris, as per Olympics.com.
Earlier, Abhishek Verma, seeded eighth, defeated world No. 1 and top-seed Mike Schloesser of the Netherlands in a shoot-off after scores in the quarter-finals were equal 148-148. He then defeated Luccas Abreu of Brazil in the semi-finals, 148-143, to go to the final against No. 2 seed James Lutz.
Abhishek Verma will now join Prathamesh Jawkar at September's finals in Mexico.
So far, India have won one gold and three bronze medals at the Archery World Cup 2023 stage 3 in Medellin.
The Indian men's compound team comprising of Abhishek Verma, Ojas Pravin Deotale, Prathamesh Jawkar and the Indian women's compound team comprising Aditi Swami, Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Parneet Kaur won bronze medals on Wednesday.
The men's recurve team of Dhiraj Bommadevara, Mrinal Chauhan and Tushar Shelke won a bronze medal on Thursday.
India's mixed recurve team of Bhajan Kaur and Tushar Shelke will battle for bronze medal against Chinese Taipei on Sunday.
The Archery World Cup 2023 stage 3 in Medellin, Colombia will meet its conclusion on Monday with individual recurve archery men's and women's finals. No Indian recurve archer has made it past the quarter-final stage. (ANI)