Indian archers made a resounding start at World Cup Stage 1 event at Santo Domingo in Dominican Republic, with Rahul Banerjee and Mangal Singh Champia finishing one-two in the men's recurve qualification round.

The Indian men and women also stood first in recurve team qualifications on Wednesday, the first day of the event.

In the absence of 2008 World Cup winner Im Dong-Hyun of Korea, the men's recurve qualification was wide open. But after 144 arrows, Rahul and Champia occupied the top two places with 1348 and 1340 points respectively.

Last year's World Cup finalist Romain Girouille of France [Images] was ranked fourth with 1339 points, just behind the Mexican Juan Rene Serrano with the same number of points but more 10s.

The Indian trio of Rahul, Champia and Jayanta Talukdar finished on top in the men's recurve team event with 4001 points and have a 19-point lead over Great Britain. The Indian women team of Dola Banerjee [Images], Bombayla Devi and Reena Kumari finished on top with 3956 points, a 23-point advantage over second-placed Italy [Images] in recurve qualification.

The brother-sister duo of Rahul and Dola occupied the top place in the newly-introduced mixed team category to complete India's success on the first day.

In the women's recurve qualification, however, Dola and Bombayla were placed a creditable fourth and fifth, with 2008 World Cup winner Justyna Mospinek of Poland finishing first and Natalia Valeeva of Italy second.