India suffered a setback in the Paralympic Games archery competitions with the Mixed Team Recurve Open category with two-time medallist Harvinder Singh and Pooja Jatyan losing in the shoot-off in the bronze medal match. Harvinder, who won the gold medal in the Men’s Individual Recurve Open in Paris, and Pooja missed out on a medal as they went down to Ziva Lavrinc and Dejan Fabcic of Slovenia in a tie-break shoot-out after the two pairs had finished 4-4 at the end of the four-set semifinal clash.

Harvinder and Pooja had started with a bang as they won the first set 33-30, as Fabcic started with two sevens. The Indians however lost the next set as they could manage only 29 points with Harvinder scoring a 6 and Pooja 5 on their first arrows. Though Harvinder shot a 10 in his second arrow, they still lost as the Slovenians scored two eights and two 9s.

The Indian pair surged ahead 4-2 by winning the third set with both Harvinder and Pooja landing a 10 each besides two 9s. The Slovenians had a 10 and two 8s but a seven by Dejan Fabcic meant they lost the third set 34-38.

The Indians failed to capitalise on the opportunity as a seven and a five by Pooja meant they could manage only 29 points while their opponents tallied 34 thanks to a 10,9 and 8 besides a 7.

In the shoot-off, Harvinder scored eight and Pooja nine for a score of 17 while Ziva Lavrinc scored a 10 while her partner struck nine to seal bronze, their maiden Paralympic Games medal.

Earlier, Harvinder and Pooja had lost to eventual gold medallist Elkisabetta Mijno and Stefano Travisani of Italy in the semifinal. The Indian duo went down 2-6 in the last-four clash as the Italians shot brilliantly including a perfect 40 in the second set. The Indians had done well to win the third set with three 9s and a 10 while Travisani scored a seven as India won 37-35.

But the Italians won the next set 38-37 to eventually seal a place in the final.

Harvinder and Pooja had moved into the quarterfinals with a close 5-4 win over the Australian duo of Taymon Kenton-Smith and Amanda Jennings in a shoot-off.

On Wednesday night, Harvinder made history by becoming India’s first-ever Olympic or Paralympic champion in archery. The 33-year-old showed a stellar performance en route to a gold medal in the recurve men’s competition at the Paris 2024.

Three years ago in the Tokyo Para Games, he reached the first milestone. His bronze was India’s premiere medal at either the Olympics or Paralympics achieved in archery.

Paris Paralympics 2024 Live: India’s schedule on Day 8!

SHOOTING

Mixed 50m Rifle Prone SH1 Qualification- Sidhartha Basu and Mona Agarwal – 1pm 

Mixed 50m Rifle Prone SH1 Final (Subject to Qualification) – 3:15 PM 

ARCHERY 

Mixed Team Recurve Open (Pre Quarterfinals)

Pooja and Harvinder Singh vs Amanda Jennings and Taymon Kenton-Smith (Australia) – 1:50pm

Subject to qualification

Mixed Team Recurve Open (Quarter-finals) – From 6:30 PM 

Mixed Team Recurve Open (Semi-finals) – From 7:50 PM 

Mixed Team Recurve Open (Bronze medal match) – 8:45 PM 

Mixed Team Recurve Open (Gold medal match) – 9:05 PM 

ATHLETICS 

Men’s Shot Put F35 

Arvind 12:12 AM (Friday) 

Women’s 100m T12 semi-final

Simran 3:10 PM

Women’s 100m T12 Final

10:47 PM Subject to qualification

POWER-LIFTING

Men’s up to 65kg final 

Ashok – 10:05pm

JUDO 

Women’s 48kg J2 (Preliminary Round)

Kokila – From 1:30 PM 

Women’s 48kg J2 (medal match)

From 7:30 PM – Subject to qualification

Men’s 60kg J1 (Preliminary Round)

Kapil Parmar

Men’s 60kg J1 (medal match)

From 7:30 PM – Subject to qualification

Harvinder Singh scripted history by becoming the first Indian archer to clinch a gold at the Paralympics after world champion shot-putter Sachin Sarjerao Khilari’s record-shattering silver-winning effort as the country’s athletes continued to surpass expectations in its best ever performance at the Games. The 33-year-old Harvinder, who became the first Indian to win an archery medal at the Games with a bronze three years ago in Tokyo, bettered the colour of his medal in a superlative performance of five consecutive wins.

He defeated Poland’s Lukasz Ciszek 6-0 in a one-sided final to script history for himself and the country. Both legs of the Haryana-archer were impaired while he was still a toddler owing to a dengue treatment adversely affecting him.

Earlier, the 34-year-old Khilari pulled off a 16.32m throw in his second attempt of the F46 category final to better his own Asian record of 16.30m which he set in May while winning gold in the World Para-Athletics Championships in Japan.

Their performance took India’s medal haul to 22 and the nation is currently placed 15th in the overall standings with four gold, eight silver and 10 bronze medals.

Greg Stewart of Canada defended his Tokyo Paralympics gold with a throw of 16.38m, while Luka Bakovic of Croatia took the bronze with 16.27m.

Khilari’s silver was also India’s 11th medal from track-and-field, the Tokyo haul of one gold, five silver and two bronze medals long overhauled.

Late on Tuesday night, Indians won silver and bronze in both men’s high jump T63 and javelin throw F46 after Deepthi Jeevanji’s bronze in the women’s 400m T20 category in India’s best day at the Games.

Sharad Kumar and Mariyappan Thangavelu won silver and bronze respectively in the men’s high jump T63 while Ajeet Singh and Sundar Singh Gurjar took the second and third sports in the javelin throw F46 final.

F46 classification is for athletes with arm deficiency, impaired muscle power or impaired passive range of movement in arms, with athletes competing in a standing position.

Hailing from a farming family at Karagani village in Maharashtra’s Sangli district, Khilari met with an accident during his childhood. The injury resulted in gangrene of the skin on his elbow and muscle atrophy. Even after several surgeries, his arm never recovered. He also lost his mother when he was young.

“I had wanted to win the gold medal, but it did not happen. It’s my best distance but I am not satisfied. I feel I could have done better. It was not my day,” Khilari said about his performance on Wednesday.

Simran enters 100m semis

World champion sprinter Simran entered the semifinals of the 100m (T12) event with a season’s best timing of 12.17sec. The runner was visually impaired as an infant after being born prematurely.

After the heat race of Wednesday, she was ranked second overall, finishing behind reigning Paralympic champion and world record holder Omara Durand of Cuba, who also ran a season’s best of 11.87s, in the 16-member field.

The semifinal will take place on Thursday.

Tokyo silver-medallist Bhavina ousted

India’s challenge in the women’s singles table tennis competition after Tokyo edition’s silver-medallist Bhavinaben Patel lost to China’s Ying Zhou 3-1 in the class 4 quarterfinal.

Bhavinaben, who became India’s first-ever medal winner in the sport with her silver in the Tokyo Paralympics, fought hard in the first two games and even won the third but eventually lost to her Chinese rival 12-14, 9-11, 11-8, 6-11.

Earlier, the other women’s singles player in class 3, Sonalben Patel lost to Croatia’s Andela Muzinic Vincetic in the round of 16.

Bhavinaben was diagnosed with polio when she was one-year old.

She competes in class 4 which is meant for wheel-chair bound athletes with functional arms and hands.

No medals in shooting

In Chateauroux, Indian shooters Nihal Singh and Rudransh Khandelwal failed to make the final of mixed 50m pistol (SH1) competition.

Nihal, the 2023 world championship bronze medallist, finished 19th. He had an aggregate score of 522 across six series.

Competing in his maiden Paralympics, 17-year-old Rudransh, who lost his left leg in a freak mishap when he was just eight-years-old, scored 517 to sign off in the 22nd spot in the qualification round.

Sheetal Devi drew massive praise on social media© X (Twitter)

Sheetal Devi hit bullseye© X (Twitter)

World number one Rakesh Kumar’s stunning run in the Paralympics ended without a medal as he went down by one-point to defending champion He Zihao of China in the bronze play-off of the men’s compound open archery event on Sunday. The 39-year-old from Jammu, who is wheelchair-bound after suffering a spinal cord injury in 2009, had a slender one-point lead with six arrows to go. But Rakesh dropped two points in the penultimate end, as the Tokyo Paralympics champion Zihao seized the momentum, hitting six 10s in a row (with three arrows closer to the bulls-eye) to win 117-116.

Harvinder Singh had won India’s solitary medal in Paralympics archery, a bronze at the Tokyo Games.

In the semifinal, Rakesh failed to bring out his A-game against ‘nemesis’ Ai Xinliang of China to lose by two points.

Like in the quarterfinals, Rakesh endured a slow start and trailed by three points with six arrows to go.

He fought hard and dropped just two points in the last two ends, but it was not enough as Xinliang sealed the issue 145-143 to secure his third successive win over the Indian.

Rakesh’s campaign had ended in Tokyo Paralympics quarterfinals, losing to the Chinese by an identical scoreline.

The Indian earlier overcame world No. 2 Ken Swagumilang of Indonesia 144-144 (10-8) to make the quarterfinals.

A sports psychologist and dietician, Rakesh, returned to the shooting line within two hours and displayed remarkable composure to outshoot Canada’s Kyle Tremblay in a riveting shoot-off with the scores reading 144-144 (10*-10).

Rakesh had a slow start, trailing by two points after nine arrows. However, staying cool as a cucumber, he delivered three perfect 10s in the fourth end, turning the tables to take a narrow 116-115 lead.

The drama intensified in the fourth end when Rakesh lost by one point, with the Canadian shooting two 10s, his final arrow landing closer to the center.

The scores were tied at 144-144, the same scoreline Rakesh faced in the quarterfinals as another shoot-off loomed.

Unlike the Indonesian archer in the quarterfinals, the Canadian found the 10-ring, heightening the tension.

Unfazed, Rakesh took a deep breath, stayed composed, and landed his arrow just 3mm closer to the center.

In comparison, Ken’s arrow was 29.55mm from the bullseye, underscoring Rakesh’s precision under pressure.

Earlier, in a battle between the top-two world ranked archers, Rakesh overcame a blip to defeat Ken.

Rakesh held his slender one-point lead and needed a 9-point in his final arrow to seal the issue in five ends.

But he slipped to the the 8-pointer red-ring as both the archers were locked 144-144 in the regulation five ends, consisting 15 arrows.

In the ensuing shootoff, Rakesh held his nerves to shoot a perfect 10, while Ken managed an 8.

Rakesh started on the backfoot with Ken pulling off a perfect first end shooting 30 out of 30, while the Indian dropped a point.

Rakesh bounced back to drill in three 10s, while Ken managed 28 to take a one-point lead.

The third and fourth ends saw both the archers dropping a point each as Rakesh maintained his slender lead before the slip-up in his final arrow of the designated five ends.

The Indian had won gold medal in individual and mixed team events of the Asian Para Championships last year.

He also won the mixed team gold medal at the World Para Championships.

Rakesh suffered a spinal cord injury and after recovering from it in 2009, he realised he would be wheelchair-bound for life, plunging him into depression and even thought of taking the extreme step.

His life took a new turn after meeting his archery coach Kuldeep Vedwan as the duo began their stint together at the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board in Katra.

In the open class, archers shoot from a sitting position at a distance of 50m at an 80cm five-ring target made up of the 10-6 point bands.

Rakesh Kumar will face Indonesia’s Ken Swagumilang for a place in the quarterfinals.© X (Twitter)

Led by the in-form Dhiraj Bommadevara and Ankita Bhakat, India’s campaign at the Paris Olympics began on a positive note as the country’s archers secured a direct entry into the quarterfinals of both the men’s and women’s team events after finishing third and fourth respectively in the ranking round in Paris on Thursday. Debutants Dhiraj and Ankita’s spectacular show in the qualifications helped India finish in the top four, giving them favourable draws to clinch an elusive Olympic medal in archery.

The top four in the team standings directly advance to the quarterfinals, while those ending between 5th to 12th play the Round of 16 fixtures.

The Indian men’s team is seeded third, which means they will not feature in the same pool as the invincible Koreans in the next round. Now, both the Indian teams need just two wins for securing Olympics medals.

Dhiraj, the world cup bronze-medallist, who defeated Tokyo Olympics silver winner Mauro Nespoli in Antalya, lived up to the expectations by finishing fourth in the individual round.

The duo of Ankita and Dhiraj, who was the star of the day with an excellent performance in the second half of his competition, will be seeded fifth in the mixed team round of 16 event.

India’s mixed team finished at the fifth position with 1347 points. Dhiraj got 681 while Ankita scored 666 earlier in the day.

The mixed team score is determined by summing the best individual score from the women’s and men’s individual event.

The Indian men’s team made it to the quarter-finals by finishing third in the ranking round with 2013 points.

Dhiraj shone with a fourth-spot finish in individual section with 681 points. Appearing in his fourth Olympics, Tarundeep Rai ended 14th with 674 points while Pravin Jadhav finished 39th with 658 points.

Korea’s Woojin Kim and Je Deok Kim bagged the top two positions with scores of 688 and 682 respectively. Germany’s Florian Unruh was third with 681.

Earlier in the day, Games debutant Ankita left behind seasoned campaigners like Deepika Kumari to emerge as the best-placed Indian archer at 11th in the women’s individual qualifications as the country secured a quarterfinal spot by finishing fourth.

The 26-year-old Ankita was the top-ranked Indian woman, followed by Bhajan Kaur (22nd with 559 points) and Deepika (23rd with 658 points).

India grabbed the fourth spot by scoring 1983 points. South Korea topped the standings with 2046 points. China finished runners-up while Mexico grabbed the third spot.

India will face the winner of the contest between France and Netherlands in the quarterfinals.

If they clear the quarters, India could be headed for a semifinal showdown with heavyweights Korea.

The Korean women’s team has been invincible in the Olympics, winning a ninth straight medal in Tokyo three years ago.

In the individual section, Korea’s Lim Sihyeon smashed a world record score of 694 to top the standings, while her compatriot Suhyeon Nam scored 688 points to finish second.

China’s Yang Xiaolei was third with 673.

Ankita, who hails from Bengal and represents Tata Academy, was the surprise package on the day from the Indian perspective, even as four-time Olympian Deepika faltered to return her worst ever qualification result at the Games.

Halfway through the men’s qualification round, India were placed sixth in the team event, with Rai on 14th, Dhiraj on 24th and Jadhav on 37th place respectively.

After that, India made a remarkable recovery and jumped to the third spot after set seven. The team then improved its position further by moving to second place after set nine.

However, India dropped back to third after set 10 as South Korea maintained their hold of the top spot.

India will face either Turkey or Colombia in the men’s quarterfinals.

A different year and another Olympics, but for Indian archers, the target will be the same — fetching their first ever medal at the Games. More or less regular at the Olympics since debuting back in 1988, the archers will kick off the nation’s Paris campaign here on Wednesday with the qualification rounds at the Les Invalides gardens here. For the first time after London 2012, India will have a full six-member squad after both the men’s and women’s teams qualified on the basis of rankings. This means they will compete in all the five events.

Veterans Tarundeep Rai and Deepika Kumari, appearing in their fourth Olympics, will lead their young teammates, hoping to securing at least a top-10 finish in the qualification round to ensure a favourable draw.

Each archer will shoot 72 arrows and the scores in the qualification round of 128 athletes from 53 countries will decide the seeds for the main knockout competition beginning with the women’s team finals on Sunday.

The qualifying round will be crucial for the Indians, who have often slipped in the seedings and ended up losing to heavyweights Korea, tipped to top the qualifications.

At the Tokyo Olympics, all the male archers finished outside the top-30 and got the ninth seeding as a team. Deepika, the sole woman archer there, also got a ninth place in rankings. Both ended up losing to top-seed Koreans in their respective quarters.

On form front, India will have high hopes from the men’s team, which won a historic World Cup this year in Shanghai, upsetting Korea for the first time in a final.

They will have the experience in Rai and Tokyo Olympian Pravin Jadhav, while debutant Dhiraj Bommadevara will be on a high after beating Tokyo Olympics silver-medallist Mauro Nespoli of Italy en route a bronze at the World Cup Stage-3 in Antalya just a month back.

Individually, debutant Dhiraj is seen as a bright prospect as he has tasted success by winning the Asian Games team silver last year, albeit with different teammates.

Known to be “ice cool” in tough situations, Dhiraj would look to overcome the bitter memories of Hangzhou Asian Games where he botched up his release twice to exit in the individual quarters.

Deepika will fight against herself in a redemption act.

All eyes would be on her especially after her stunning comeback to win a World Cup Stage-1 silver in Shanghai in April this year, less than 16 months after becoming a mother.

Last time in Tokyo, An San of Korea was her nemesis as she went on to become the gold-medallist.

There is no An this time, but they have another Korean in Lim Si-hyeon who has defeated Deepika twice this year including in the Shanghai World Cup final.

“If she gets going, Deepika churns out perfect 10s at ease. But at the same time, she suffers from inconsistency and makes silly mistakes at crunch times. If she overcomes her mental blockade, there is no stopping her,” India’s high performance director Sanjeeva Singh said.

Dhiraj and Deepika, if they manage to top their ranking rounds, would be an exciting prospect for the recurve mixed team.

Dhiraj’s composure and Deepika’s skills would complement each other well at the highest level.

The women’s team, on the other hand, will be low on experience barring Deepika.

Ankita Bhakat and Bhajan Kaur, who have been Indian regulars in this Olympic cycle and won a World Cup Stage-4 bronze here in 2023, are slated for their respective Games debut.

They have together won the Asian Games bronze last year and will look to draw inspiration from that.

Twenty-six-year-old Ankita, who hails from Bengal but represents Tata Academy, is relatively more experienced having won a clutch of World Cup team medals including a gold and silver, both in Paris in 2021 and 2022 respectively.

Controversial build-up

The archers Olympic build-up was marred by their foreign coach Baek Woong Ki’s return to India after not getting accreditation to enter the Games.

The South Korean, who was contracted by the Archery Association of India for the Olympics at an approximate annual contract of Rs one crore, had accompanied the team to their 10-day preparatory camp in Jaux.

But he had to return after AAI failed to procure an accreditation for him as the sports body was engaged in a blame game with national federation (IOA).

While there would be no Baek, India will have men’s and women’s team coaches in Sonam Singh Bhutia (Army) and Purnima Mahato (Tata) whose archers have made the side.

In absence of Baek, it remains to be seen how the Indians will cope with crunch moments especially while taking on arch-nemesis Korea in the knockouts.

Quarterfinal jinx

Indian archers have never been able to go past the quarterfinal hurdle.

The script has been the same all these years, barring in Sydney 2000 where India could not qualify for the Games.

In terms of cumulative performance, the best ever show was at the last Olympics in Tokyo where the India men’s team, mixed team and Deepika individually, all fell by the wayside in the quarters.

India were awarded the team quotas after topping the men’s and women’s rankings among non-qualified nations in the Olympic cycle.

The men’s team finals will be on Monday, while the individual eliminations will get underway on Tuesday.

The mixed team finals are slated for next Friday, followed by women and individual finals over the same weekend.

World number one Indian women’s compound team stormed into the final of the archery World Cup Stage II but the men’s team will return empty-handed from the tournament after losing the bronze medal clash to Australia in Yecheon on Wednesday. The trio of Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Parneet Kaur and Aditi Swami, that had clinched gold medal in World Cup Stage 1 in Shanghai leg last month, knocked out world number four USA 233-229 in the semi-final. India will now clash with world number seven Turkey in the gold medal clash on Saturday. Turkey had stunned top-seed and local favourites South Korea 234-233 in the other semi-final.

It was an overall easy sailing for the Indian women’s team, which got a bye into the quarters after finishing second in the qualifying round. They eliminated Italy 236-234 in the last-eight.

The world number one men’s team of Priyansh, Prathamesh Fuge and veteran Abhishek Verma, who had slipped to fourth in the qualifying round on Tuesday, lost to lowly-ranked Australia 133-133 (10-10*) in a shoot-off.

The Aussies, who are world ranked 21st, took the Indian trio by surprise starting with a 59, dropping just one point.

The Aussies team of Bailey Wildman, Brandon Hawes and Jonathon Milne continued its fine run and overcame a one-point deficit after the second round to make it 233-all after the regulation four ended.

The two teams were 30-all in the ensuing shoot-off but the Aussies edged out the inconsistent Indians by shooting two Xs (arrows closer to centre) to secure the bronze medal.

Having started their campaign with an easy 235-212 win over lowly-ranked Vietnam, India overcame tough competition from Denmark and top seed USA, winning both the matches in shoot-off.

Meanwhile, the veteran duo of Tarundeep Rai and Deepika Kumari finished fourth and sixth in their respective qualifiers as recurve competition got underway.

The 2010 Asian Games silver medalist Rai shot 681 points for a sixth spot in rankings, while Dhiraj Bommadevara narrowly missed a top-10 finish on X (closer to centre) count after five archers shot 678 with the Indian finishing 11th.

The Army duo’s solid finish ensured Indian recurve men’s team No 2 seeding in their title defence. India and top-seeded South Korea will begin their campaign at the opposite ends of the draw.

Indian men’s team shocked the world champions South Korea for the first time in a World Cup to take the gold in Stage 1 of the event in Shanghai last month.

Deepika missed the top-three finish in the rankings by just one point, shooting 677 as the Korean duo of Lim Sihyeon (685), Jeon Hunyoung (680) and Li Jiaman (678) took the 1-2-3 seedings.

The other Indians however fell way short with Bhajan Kaur (653 points) and Ankita Bhakat (646) were the next best Indians at lowly 34th and 49th places respectively. As a result, the women’s team seedings could not be better than six.

Rai and Deepika combined to get a cumulative 1358 points for the second spot behind South Korea in the recurve mixed team category.