Diya and Rubel make history

Bangladesh made a small piece of history by moving into the final of an event at the Asian Archery Championships for the first time after a close-run 5-4 win over a strong India in an exciting semifinal of the Recurve Mixed Team event at the Army Stadium in Banani yesterday.

Earlier this year, Bangladesh had also qualified for the final on an even bigger stage as Ruman Sana and Diya Siddique reached the final of the recurve mixed event at the Archery World Cup Stage-2 in Switzerland. On that occasion, Bangladesh had to be satisfied with a silver medal after losing to Netherlands in the final.

This time around, Diya and Hakim Ahmed Rubel proved the winning combination in the prestigious Asian championships. They started on the back foot after losing the first set 37-40 before bouncing back strongly in the next two sets with 37-36 and 38-36 wins.

They could have sealed a spot in the final by winning the fourth set, but a 36-37 defeat saw the four-set semifinal end with each team on four set points, forcing the match into a tiebreaker.

Diya and Rubel hit the bullseye to score 20 out of 20 in the tiebreaker while India fell short by one point, managing 19, as Bangladesh set up a final against favourites South Korea on Friday.

Aside from the mixed team, Bangladesh men's and women's teams fell to defeats in semifinals against India and Korea respectively to set up today's bronze-medal battle against Kazakhstan and Vietnam.

Bangladesh will also fight for bronze against India in the men's compound team event today after losing a semifinal 228-235 to South Korea while Bangladesh women's compound team and compound mixed team lost to Iran 226-227 and 154-157 respectively in the quarterfinals.