Paralympics: India's Sheetal Devi, Rakesh Kumar win archery mixed team bronze

India’s Sheetal Devi and Rakesh Kumar won the bronze medal in the mixed team compound event in archery at the Paris Olympics. On Monday, September 2, they defeated Italy’s Matteo Bonacina and Eleonora 156-155 at Invalides. India also equalled the Paralympic record, set by Turkiye three years ago in Tokyo. Italy hold the world record with a score of 158 that they made in Beijing back in 2017.

Italy took the lead after the first round after hitting the spider twice. But India



stormed back in the second set. After the third round, Italy again got themselves ahead. In the last and final round, Sheetal and Rakesh put in four arrows of 10 to come up trumps.

Earlier, India had every chance of fighting for gold, but they agonisingly ended up losing to Iran in the semi-final. With the score-line reading 113-113, India and Iran made sure that the semis went into the shoot-off. Thereafter, the four archers pulled off scores of 10, but it was Iran who was declared winners.