Rakesh Kumar broke his personal best record to finish third in the Men's Individual Compound (Open Ranking Round) with 699 points.
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The Indian Archery team got their Paralympic games off to a start with four archers competing in the qualification rounds on Friday. Shyam Sundar and Rakesh Kumar battled it out in the Men’s Individual Compound, with Vivek Chikara and Harvinder Singh in the Men’s Individual Recurve.
Team #IND #ParaArchery cooling off for the day! @Shyamsu15152060 @RakeshK21328176 @VivekChikara2 @94jyotibaliyan @ArcherHarvinder @VedwanKuldeep
PCI President @DeepaAthlete appreciating the performances of the day! ? #Tokyo2020 @Paralympics #Praise4Para @Tokyo2020hi @Media_SAI pic.twitter.com/My40IRFPPk— Paralympic India ?? #Cheer4India ? #Praise4Para (@ParalympicIndia) August 27, 2021
Both men started quite decent. Nothing spectacular. After shooting 18 arrows, Rakesh Kumar found himself in the 5th position with 175 points to his name. Meanwhile, his compatriot Shyam Sundar was still struggling to find his rhythm, he was placed 28th with 167 points. Both men are competing in the Men’s individual compound event.
At the mid-way mark, after 10 rounds, Rakesh Kumar was placed 3rd while Shyam Sundar at 22nd.
By the end of the ranking round, Rakesh held onto his 3rd place with 699 points. The archer broke his personal best record. After 66 arrows, Rakesh Kumar was in the 3rd spot. Then he came up with a perfect set of 60 with last six shots to go. He managed to hold on to his position and qualified for the final round. He scored 53 tens that helped him reach this ranking.
Meanwhile, Shyam gave it his best and bettered one position to 21st finishing with 682 points. This is Shyam’s season best total.
On the other side, in the Men’s Recurve event, after 6 rounds, Harvinder Singh found himself in the 13th position with 303 points to his name. Vivek Chikara scored 301 points which kept him just one place behind Harvinder.
At the mid-way point, Harvinder was placed 16th and Vivek at 11th.
In this event, Vivek Chikara put in a decent shift, finishing 10th. Harvinder Singh could not do better from the mid-way mark, declining to 21st from 16th.
India finished sixth in the ranking round of mixed team compound archery, with Rakesh Kumar scoring 699 points and 671 points by Jyoti to make the team total of 1370 points. China finished first with a Paralympic record of total 1388 points.
Indian archer Jyoti Balyan finished 15th out of 24 in the Women’s Individual Compound- Open Ranking Round of the ongoing Tokyo Paralympics. She scored 58 in her last set of arrows and achieved her season’s best score of 671. Over the years, the Indian has gone on to become one of the top female para-athletes in the world. She was part of the seventh Fazza Para Archery Tournament in Dubai, which had the world’s top 10 archers back in February, 2021.
China’s Lin Yueshan started brightly with 60 points, while Jyoti scored 56 points to place herself at the 13th spot. After 18 of 72 arrows, the Indian got better as she moved to the 11th spot with 168 points. After Round 6, Jyoti was placed at the 13th spot. She had three sets of 56 followed by a couple of 55s. Russian Paralympic Committee archer Stepanida Artakhinova was placed on top of the table.
