BANGKOK: India won nine medals total—four gold, four silver, and one bronze—and won the Asian Para Archery Championships thanks to outstanding performances from Rakesh Kumar and Sheetal Devi. India finished the competition with four gold, four silver, and one bronze medal, while South Korea took second place with five medals (3-1-1). The 38-year-old Rakesh, the silver medallist from the Hangzhou Para Asian Games, overcame a two-point deficit at the halfway point to defeat Indonesia’s Ken Swagumilang 145-144 to win the men’s compound open title.Earlier, Rakesh and Suraj Singh defeated Chung-Hung Wu and Chih-Chiang Chng of Chinese Taipei 147-144 to win the men’s compound open team gold. Then, he and Sheetal Devi defeated Teodora Audi Ayudia Ferelly and Ken Swagumilang of Indonesia, 154-149, to win the mixed team gold. In the women’s compound open team event, India won a fourth gold medal thanks to a lopsided final score of 148-137 between Sheetal and Jyoti, who defeated Jin Young Jeong and Na Mi Choi of Korea. India came back with four silver medals as well. India was defeated 4-5 in the tiebreaker by Indonesia in the women’s recurve open team final. The men’s recurve doubles team of Vivek Chikara and Harvinder then lost to South Korea 2–6, taking home silver.Adil and Naveen’s men’s recurve W1 doubles team took home a third silver medal, but they were defeated 122-137 by South Korea. Moreover, Sheetal Devi was forced to accept a silver medal after Singapore’s Nur Syahidah Alim defeated her in the penalty shoot. After the five regulation ends, both were tied at 142-142. The shoot-off also resulted in a 10-all tie, with Nur being declared the winner because her arrow was closer to the centre. Sarita had already defeated teammate Jyoti to win a bronze in the women’s individual compound category.
