Bronze for India 1 after disappointing loss to USA

Ukraine’s 3-1 victory over Poland gives it gold; India 2 finishes eighth and India 3 17th

A heart-breaking 1-3 defeat to USA robbed India 1 the gold medal, but a historic-first bronze medal did manage to bring back the smiles.

A long period of suspense that preceded the final list of medallists was quite an agonizing one but proved worth it.

India topped the three-way tie for the bronze medal at 17 match-points after aggregating 396,5 tie-breaking points, ahead of USA’s 390 and Kazakhstan’s 352.

The law of averages finally caught up with Tania Sachdev and Bhakti Kulkarni, the team’s strike-force on the lower boards, as they lost for the first time. That meant, the draws from K. Humpy and R. Vaishali on the top two boards did not help India’s cause. India 2 finished eighth and India 3 occupied the 17th spot.

Overnight leaders Ukraine and Georgia finished with 18 points following 11th round victories. Ukraine’s 3-1 victory over a tough Poland gave it the gold.

Georgia kept pace by beating Azerbaijan 3-1 and Ukraine’s tie-break count of 413.50 — as against Georgia’s 392 — proved decisive.

India’s first medal since making its debut in the women’s Olympiad in 1978, came on a day when R. Vaishali, Tania and Divya Deshmukh collected bronze medals for their performances.