India, May 11 -- In many Olympic sports, defeating the Chinese in their den is considered among the most monumental of challenges. The crowd unabashedly screams for their own, the field of play turns into a cauldron, the players up against it can often feel shaken by it.

It's just the kind of external variable that has impacted Indian archers in big events in the past, largely negatively. And it's something the recurve women's team had to front up with again on Sunday in a high-pressure World Cup Stage 2 final inside Shanghai's Yuanshen Stadium.

"More than 200 people had packed the arena, and almost everyone was cheering loudly for their team," Prafull Dange, coach of the women's team at this event, told HT from Shanghai. "I just told o...