Adriyan Karmakar achieves a feat with a silver in his debut at ISSF Junior World Cup
Adriyan Karmakar opened India’s medal account at the ISSF Junior World Cup on Tuesday with a silver on debut in the 50m rifle prone event, ensuring a positive start for the country in the tournament. The 20-year-old junior 3P national champion aggregated 626.7 after 60 shots and missed out on gold by just 0.3 points to Sweden’s Jesper Johansson. USA’s Griffin Lake won the bronze with 624.6. Adriyan, who has earlier represented India juniors at the world championships but never in a World Cup, shot confidently and was one of the earliest participants to finish. His effort was also a junior national record in the event. Among other Indians in the fray, 15-year-old Rohit Kanyan finished 12th with a score of 620.2, while Vedant Nitin Waghmare shot 614.4 to end in 35th place.
Kaka keen to reunite with Ancelotti as part of Brazil’s coaching staff
FIFA World Cup 2002 winner Kaka has expressed his interest in joining Carlo Ancelotti as part of his staff for the Brazilian national team. The former attacking midfielder played 92 matches for the Selecao, winning the World Cup once and the FIFA Confederations Cup twice. “If the think-tank of the national team feels I can help in some way, I think that, at this moment, I am ready. I am prepared,” Kaká said in an interview with Caze TV. Kaka played under Ancelotti at AC Milan and Real Madrid, winning five major trophies with the Serie A side, while he won the Ballon d’Or during the same stint, in 2007. “I stopped playing in 2017. Since then, I have wanted to prepare myself. I took sports business courses at Harvard in the United States. I also earned a coaching degree at the CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation). I have experience with the national team, the World Cup. If the opportunity comes, I am ready to return to serve the Brazilian national team,” the Brazilian added. Brazil, a five-time world champion, has struggled for world dominance in the last decade, failing to reach beyond the quarterfinals in four of the last five editions of the FIFA World Cup. Ancelotti will take charge of the team from 16th May, with his first two matches lined up against Ecuador (5th June) and Paraguay (10th June). Brazil is fourth in the World Cup qualification standings with four more matches to go. The top six teams qualify for the FIFA World Cup 2026.
Madhura thought of quitting archery! Drushti Academy takes her back to the limelight with three medals
Amravati had a revelation-day on Saturday after Madhura Dhamangaonkar stunned the world archery with a dream comeback. But Friday was a day of nerves in the Dhamangaonkar house. Shailendra Dhamangaonkar, Madhura’s father, revealed while speaking to New Indian Express, “We had tuned in this morning, and all we had was ‘dhak dhak dhak!’ (loud heartbeats),” he said, adding that being a father to someone who has all three medals for the nation in the same day is of “immense pride. As Madhura won three medals in the World Cup in Shanghai, seeing the Indian flag rise high was a special feeling.” Hailing from Amravati, Madhura was earlier under the tutelage of Ganesh Vishwakarma and Pawan Tambade for the past seven years. Sawant first knew Madhura through archer Prathamesh Fuge, with whom the latter trained at Sonipat. “This is where she joined the Drushti Archery Academy in 2023,” he recalled. But things did not go well at all. Even she thought of quitting archery! Cut to May 2025, the compound archer has a gold medal around her neck after winning the final of the Women’s compound event against Carson Krahe of the United States at the Archery World Cup Stage 2 in Shanghai on Saturday. Her coach, Pravin Sawant, felt that it was her ‘gold wala mind’ that propelled her to victory. “Since she’s been with me, she’s always had it in her mind to win gold for the nation,” he told this daily. Madhura is someone who can grasp quickly from her tutors. “That is her biggest strength. She does what she thinks of. She does what she sets her mind on,” he added. Madhura’s story has destiny playing a pivotal part in making her who she is today. Her father, Shailendra, reminisced about the train travel from Kolkata after her sister took part in an Asian level swimming competition in Dhaka back in 2011. At the time, Madhura had taken gymnastics. “We were travelling (back to Nagpur) and when the train stopped at Chandrapur, we happened to see a woman who won a silver medal in the national games. She was a compound archer, we learnt. This was where Madhura shared her aspirations to be an archer with me,” he recalled. The archer was Jayalakshmi Sarikonda, who is now a sports officer. Little did she know that her medal inspired another to go on and clinch gold at the discipline’s premier tournament. Shailendra credited the sporting background of the family for her daughter’s success.” Her sister took part in swimming, and I was also a Kabaddi player in my day. That was conducive and it fed her confidence,” he opined. Three years ago, Madhura made it to the Indian team for the Archery World Cup Stage 4, where she lost in the second round in individual and in the quarterfinal in the women’s team event, where she paired up with Pragati and Shrishti Singh.
India’s men compound team clinch gold in Archery World Cup Stage-2
India’s men’s compound team won gold in the archery stage World Cup stage-2 in Shanghai on Saturday. India’s men’d team comprising Abhishek Verma, Ojas Deotale and young promising archer Rishabh Yadav delivered a perfect performance, defeating Mexico with a score of 232- 228 to ensure the gold medal in a thrilling encounter. In the women’s compound category Indian women, despite exhibiting a spirited show lost to Mexico and had to be content with a silver finally. Meanwhile Indian mixed team despite losing the match for reaching final, bounced back and secured a bronze medal trouncing Malaysia to make a podium finish. India have already won four medals in the Archery stage-1 world cup..
Deepika, Parth reach recurve individual semifinals in World Cup Stage-2
Deepika Kumari and Parth Salunkhe booked their spots in the semifinals of the individual recurve events at the Archery World Cup Stage-2 in Shanghai on Friday. Parth stunned former Olympic and World Champion Mete Gazoz of Turkiye in a shoot-off in the first round. The Indian also defeated Korea’s Kim Je Deok, a three-time Olympic gold medallist in team events, in the third round. His semifinal will be against reigning Olympic Champion Kim Woojin, another Korean, on Sunday. Olympian Deepika took down China’s Li Jiaman, silver medallist in the team event at the Paris Olympics, 6-2 in the quarterfinals. Like Parth, Deepika will also face reigning Olympic Champion – Lim Sihyeon of Korea – in Sunday’s final-four battle. In the compound mixed team event, India’s Abhishek Verma and Madhura Dhamangaonkar went down 156-158 to Great Britain in the semifinals. Abhishek and Madhura will play against Malaysia’s Fatin Nurfatehah Mat Salleh and Mohd. Juwaidi Mazuki in Saturday’s bronze medal match. The Indian men’s and women’s compound teams will face Mexico in their respective finals.
Despite the uncertainty, Kerala Sports Ministry’s effort to organize the Messi-match
Sudeep Pakrashi: Due to failure to arrange the appearance fees for Argentina’s World Cup-winning team including the captain Lionel Messi, the chances of organizing the two scheduled friendly matches in Kerala are slim. Still, Kerala’s sports ministry is making an effort to accumulate the funds to organize the match. The matches were scheduled to be held in October this year. According to reports from local newspapers, the organizers have failed to raise the minimum Rs 100 crore required to arrange the matches. Rs 70 crore was reportedly needed just as the appearance fee for the Argentina team. HSBC India, which associated itself with Argentina football team to promote the sport in India and Singapore, had also announced that the team would visit to India in October this year. The statement gave more strength to the hopes that Messi will finally be coming to India. But the bank has now stopped commenting on the issue. But according to Kerala Sports Ministry, efforts are still on to find out new corporate houses who can come forward with the needed financial investment to organize the match as the Sports Ministry is keen about the match to be happened in the state for the promotion of the game. In that case, the matches can be rescheduled sometime in 2026, after the Fifa World Cup to be held in June-July. Meanwhile, the Kerala Super League this year, scheduled to kick off at the end of August, also looks uncertain as two teams seem unwilling to make the investment and build up their respective teams so far due to their financial difficulties. It is believed the franchises were disappointed following the organizer’s failure to fulfill the financial commitment to the participating franchises after the inaugural edition of the league. It is learned that among the two teams unwilling to continue so far, one is the Kannur Warriors. According to sources close to the organizers, the top brass of the other participating teams is also waiting for the final status of Anil Kumar in the All India Football Federation (AIFF). Kumar, the secretary of Kerala Football Association (KFA), was the key man behind the introduction of KSL last year, and the Supreme Court has imposed a stay-order on his appointment as the Secretary General of the AIFF.
