Paralympics 2024 Archery: Sarita, Rakesh advance to round of 16

In what was a good day for Indian para-archery, Sarita and Rakesh Kumar advanced to the round of 16 with comfortable wins over their opponents, at Les Invalides arena, on Friday.

Shyam Sundar, however, suffered an agonizing exit in the hands of Thailand's Comsan Singpirom, losing out in the tie-breaker shoot-off as the latter's arrow was 5mm closer to the center than Sundar's arrow.

Sarita opened the day's Indian fixtures with a very comfortable win against Abdul Jalil, defeating her 138-124.

Right from round one, Sarita was on top, racing to a six-point lead, thanks to Jilal's wayward shooting.

The result became inevitable in the subsequent rounds, with Jilal not having any control over her shots, whereas Sarita remained calm and did her business.

Sarita will now face Elenora Sarti tomorrow, 31st August, in the round of 16.

Rakesh Kumar, the world no.1 archer, made light work of Aliou Drame from Senegal in his round of 32 tie, winning comfortably with a score of 136-131.

The conditions were extremely challenging during the match, with rain coming down heavily but both archers stood their ground and Rakesh, despite bad weather, barely faltered and hit as many as five 10s in his 15 arrows.

Rakesh will face the Indonesian archer Ken Swagumilang in the round of 16 on 1st September.

Shyam Sundar started brilliantly against Comsan Singpirom and had a consecutive streak of four tens. Heading into the final round, he was leading 113-110.

But a poor second shot in round five, where he shot a seven, meant the Thai was back in the game and the match ended 138-138.

In the resulting tie-breaker, both archers shot a 10, but Comsan's arrow was 5mm closer to the center and therefore, he qualified for the next round, leaving Shyam eliminated from the competition.