Dubai, (Samajweekly) Rakesh Kumar on Friday defeated compatriot Shyam Sundar Swami to clinch the Compound Men Open gold medal as India finished their campaign with five medals at the 7th Fazza Para Archery World Ranking Championships-Dubai 2021 here. Overall, India finished third.
On the final day of the competition, India claimed a gold and two silver. The other silver was claimed by Jyoti Baliyan.
In an all-Indian final, Rakesh (29-28-30-28-28) stayed ahead right from the first end against Swami (26-26-28-28-27) and maintained the momentum until the end. The final score read 143-135.
“It was a good learning experience here. Now we go back and train to shoot in windy condition. We will be back here again for the World Para Archery Championships. Our preparation for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games continues,” said Swami after taking the silver.
In the Compound Women Open Final, Baliyan (27-19-27-28-27) showed great resilience to stay in the contest until the end, pushing even a tiebreaker 101-101 after the fourth end. But the Indian fell short in the end by two points losing to Russia’s Stepanida Artakhinova (26-23-26-26-29) 130-128.
“I tried hard but shot badly in the end. However, I am happy to take the silver and some experience from here. I will look to secure a quota from the last qualifying event at the Czech Republic,” said Baliyan.
On Thursday, Para archers Harvinder Singh and Pooja claimed the Recurve Open Mixed Team gold medal.
Coach Anil Joshi was happy with the team’s show and said the Para archers delivered as expected. “This event was important as part of our preparation for Tokyo 2020 Paralympics. The team will work on their weaknesses now.”
Overall, India finished third (2 gold, 3 silver) in the medals tally, behind Turkey with 8 medals (3 gold, 2 silver, 3 bronze) and Russia with 4 medals (3 gold and 1 silver).
Among the top names, Iran’s back-to-back Paralympic champion Zahra Nemati (23, 16, 22, 23) finished second to Turkey’s Yagmur Sengul (22,22, 24, 24) 6-2.
