Archer Tarundeep Rai to vie for World Cup bronze

Kolkata, June 21 (IANS) India's Tarundeep Rai lost in the semi-finals Wednesday and will play Gael Prevost of France for the bronze medal in the men's recurve individual event of the World Cup Archery Stage III at Ogden in the US, according to information received here.

The Asian Games silver medallist Indian went down to Great Britain's Laurence Godfrey in the tie-breaker after both tied 5-5 in set points Wednesday. Rai beat Michele Frangilli of Italy in the quarter-finals 6-5.

Down 0-2 sets which fetched the Briton four points, Rai fought back to win the next two to tie the set score at 4-4. The fifth set was tied and that gave both one point each. In the tie-breaker, Godfrey shot a 10 to Rai's 8 to move into the final.

Rahul Banerjee, whose equipment went missing, finally got back the bow case Wednesday evening when a Delta Airlines official returned it. In the morning, he lost to Ibrahim Sabry of Egypt 6-4 in the opening round while the best ranked Indian Jayanta Talukdar fell in the second round to Athens Olympic champion Marco Galiazzo of Italy 6-2.

The results:

Semi-finals: Laurence Godfrey (GB) bt Tarundeep Rai (30-26, 30-26, 26-28, 28-29, 28-28; T-10, T-8); Quarter-finals: Rai bt Michele Frangilli (Ita) 6-5 (28-28, 29-27, 28-28, 23-24, 27-27; T-9*, T-9). 2nd round: Marco Galiazzo (Ita) bt Jayanta Talukdar 6-2 (30-24, 26-29, 29-27, 30-28). 1st round: Ibrahim Sabry (Egy) bt Rahul Banerjee 6-4 (28-26, 22-26, 25-28, 30-27, 30-28).