Archery at Paris Paralympics 2024: Sarita Kumari and Sheetal Devi Bow Out After Strong Performances

High Points of Archery at Paris Paralympics 2024: Sarita Kumari and Sheetal Devi Get Stunning Defeats

India had a scare at the Paris Paralympics 2024 Archery events as Sarita Kumari and Sheetal Devi were out of their categories on Saturday. Sarita Kumari reached a quarter final stage while Sheetal Devi better known as the armless wonder also performed well till the last-16 round of compound women’s open<dx> category.

Sarita Kumari’s Inspirational Journey Stopped in Quarter final Round

The ninth seed in the contest was Sarita Kumari from Faridabad and she was widely popular too. For the first two rounds she gave a very good account of herself proving her prowess in the sport. But this she was to meet her early bath in the quarter final when she was beaten by the top seed Oznur Cure Girdi of Turkey. Oznur who excelled the other candidates with a score of 704 out of maximum 720 points in the qualifying round examination was quite a challenge.

Three tens in the second end was scored by Oznur and she created a five-point advantage for herself. Sarita responded strongly, take the third set and draw a level with Oznur 2-0 in the four set. Nevertheless, Oznur continued to lead the game and with 29 points in the fifth end she got a 4-point lead and thus won the set.

Before that in pre-quarterfinals, Sarita showed her power by overpowering Italy’s Eleonora Sarti 141-135 very one sided bout. Sarita had a good start and never really relinquished her lead throughout the match; she closed out the win with two nice shots at two ends. In the first-round match she defeated Nur Jannaton Abdul Jalil of Malaysia with a score of 138-124.

Sheetal Devi’s Valiant Efforts in the last-16

It was billed as a face off between the debutante Sheetal Devi, a double gold Asian games Para Athlete and the archer who pulls the string with the help of her toes. Though she figured in a record-shooting performance in the elimination rounds scoring 703 points, which was a world record higher than the previous one of 698, the finals were a different ball game for Sheetal as she came up against Mariana Zuniga of Chile who won the silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics.

Initially, Sheetal got off the hook, and he beat Meeka 29-28 in the first set. But a 7-point shot in the second end gave Zuniga an opportunity to even the score with her 55-55. The competition continued tight for the next eight arrows and Karu’s two best competitors and her were equals on the scoreboard. In the last arrow, Zuniga got the advantage of shooting 9 while Sheetal scored at 8-ring thus making the score 137-138.

Once again, an overview of the archery events Examples of the sports include:

In the open class archery events competitors kneel or sit and they shoot at a distance of 50 meters at an 80 cm target which have five rings bands which score from 10 to 6 points respectively. For performance of the archers in this form of the category, the focus is placed on the touch and tallying of ends in a specific number.

But off course both Sarita Kumari and Sheetal Devi have shown tremendous amounts of raw talent and hard work in Paris Paralympics 2024 much to the delight of millions of fans and also themselves.

Click here for more updates on the ongoing events at the Paris Paralympics 2024: https://www.paralympic.org/paris-2024