The 2025 Archery World Cup Stage 3 in Antalya, Turkey proved to be a horror show for Indian archers as they returned from the competition without winning a single medal.

The men’s recurve team of Dhiraj Bommadevara, Atanu Das, and Parth Salunkhe and the women’s compound trio of Madhura Dhamangaonkar, Chikitha Taniparthi, and Jyothi Surekha Vennam were the best performing Indians in the competition, losing out in their respective bronze medal matches.

In the individual events, Simranjeet Kaur was the only recurve archer to make it to the quarter-finals, where she suffered a hard fought 5-6 loss at the hands of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics champion An San of South Korea.

In the compound individual events, Madhura Dhamangaonkar, Aditi Swami, and Rishabh Yadav all crashed out in the quarter-finals as well.

The World Cup in Antalya, thus, marked the first time since the 2022 Stage 4 in Medellin, Colombia that India returned from an Archery World Cup without a medal.

Since then India had always had an archer on podium in the four World Cup stages in 2023, three in 2024, and the two prior to Antalya earlier this year, making it nine consecutive World Cup with a podium finish.

If you take even the World Cup Final in contention, it would make for 11 consecutive podium finishes for India. After the sorry run in Medellin Stage 4 in 2022, India had not won a medal in the 2022 World Cup Final in Tlaxcala, Mexico either.

It was also the first time Indian compound archers failed to win a medal since the 2022 World Cup Final.

The compound archers, over the last few years, have been India’s most consistent athletes across sporting discipline and with the inclusion of the sport for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics – first time in history – there are a lot of expectations.

The struggles in Antalya, thus, have raised eyebrows.

Did the new points system impact India adversely?

The 2025 Archery World Cup in Antalya was the first time the new rules introduced by World Archery was put into force.

For the first time ever, the innermost ring on the target now hands competitors 11 points instead of the usual ten with a ‘X’. This has shaken up the entire scoring system as just a normal ten is now not enough to get full points and the archers need to hit bullseye.

Besides, the qualification rounds has also been shortened. Now each archer gets just 60 arrows in the qualification rounds, compared to the 72 arrows as per the earlier system. This development means that the room for error has further reduced for the archers.

The change in qualification system seemed to have impacted India as only a solitary archery – Madhura in women’s compound – finished among top five at the fourth place.

There, in fact, was no other Indian in top ten after the qualification rounds across all four individual disciplines. Dhiraj was the highest ranked in men’s recurve at the 13th spot, Ankita Bhakat at No 33 was the highest ranked Indian in women’s recurve.

In men’s compound Rishabh was the top ranked Indian at 13th spot.

These fall in qualification rankings also meant that India were impacted in the team seedings as well. Teams are placed, taking into account the cumulative scores of top three archers in men’s, women’s events, while the top ranked men, women combine forces to form the mixed team.

In contrast, Dhiraj was placed ninth and sixth in men’s recurve qualification in the Stage 2 and Stage 1 of the 2025 Archery World Cup. India also had Deepika 12th and Anshika 11th in women’s recurve in the previous two World Cups.

On the other hand, Abhishek and Rishabh were ranked third and fourth respectively in men’s compound qualification round in 2025 Archery World Cup Stage 2.

If you look at the last World Cup held in Antalya – Stage 3, 2024 – Dhiraj was placed third, Bhajan Kaur tenth in the two recurve events. In compound, Priyansh and Abhishek were fourth and fifth respectively, while Jyoti Vennam and Aditi were second and tenth respectively for the same criteria.

India’s best qualification finishes in each individual events in recent past:

Elsewhere if you look at the 15 individual eliminations matches India lost at the 2025 Archery World Cup Stage 3 in Antalya, three archers from the country fell on the wrong side of the newly introduced 11-point system.

They include Dhiraj in men’s recurve Round of 32, Deepika in women’s recurve Round of 32, and Uday Kamboj in men’s compound round of 32.

While Dhiraj could have advanced further in the competition if not for an 11-shot by his opponent, Uday could have forced a shoot-off, and Deepika could have extended her match to yet another set.

Even in the qualification rounds, it was only women’s compound star Madhura who went toe-to-toe with the rest for the number of innermost shots or the newly 11s in Antalya. The rest were far off from the top finishers.

The newly introduced system has certainly played a role in India’s disappointing run at the 2025 Archery World Cup in Antalya and they would hope to adjust to it sooner than later.