Paris Paralympics 2024: Harvinder Singh And Pooja Jatyan Miss Out On Medal, Finish 4th In Recurve Mixed Team

New Delhi: The Indian archers, comprising Harvinder Singh and Pooja Jatyan, narrowly missed out on the podium in the recurve mixed team open category at the 2024 Paris Paralympics as they lost to Slovenia’s Ziva Lavrinc and Dejan Fabcic 4-5 in the shoot-off during the 3rd-4th place play-off.
The visitors lost the first set 36-31, but Mijno and Travisani came out firing to begin the second set after rattling off four straight 10s for a 4-0 advantage.
As the game wore on, Pooja and Harvinder staged a fightback. The two 9s opened a two-point lead midway through the third set. Pooja’s clean 10 with her last arrow and Harvinder’s 9 helped them clinch the third set 37-35 and narrow the margin to 2-4.
However, the top-seeded Italians kept their cool as they won the fourth set 38-37 with the Indians trying to bridge the gap.
Earlier, Harvinder Singh and Pooja Jatyan had intelligently downed their higher-ranked Polish rivals in straight sets to enter the last four. Up against the fourthseeded Polish combine of Milena Olszewska and Lukasz Ciszek, the Indian pair showed better consistency to outlast the faltering Poles and reach within a victory of a third archery medal.
India’s campaign began with the bronze medal coming in by Rakesh Kumar and Sheetal Devi in the compound mixed team open category, before Harvinder created history, becoming the first-ever Indian archer to win Paralympics gold.
Harvinder and Pooja turned Polish mistakes-including a 7 and a 6 by Ciszek, the men’s individual silver medallist-into good effect to win the first set 35-32. A telling 10 by Pooja in the first end saw them snap out of a 16-all deadlock as the Indian pair surged ahead 4-0 with a slender 33-32 win in the second set.
Harvinder’s perfect 10 to start the third set gave India a two-point lead, which it held to take the set 36-32 to go on the brink of historic third medal in archery.
The following day from the historic victory, the quest for a second medal continued unabated as Harvinder and Pooja edged out Australia’s Taymon Kenton-Smith and Amanda Jennings 5-4 in a shoot-off after being tied at 16-16. The Indian combine won the first two sets 31-18 and 35-24 but made a mess of the next two, losing 27-33 and 24-33, thus resulting in the shoot-off. They went on to win it comprehensively at 16-5 to progress to the quarterfinals against Poland.
In the recurve open category, archers shoot from the standing position at a 70-meter distance at a 122cm target segmented by 10 concentric scoring circles.
Early Life Challenges
Harvinder belongs to a farming family in Haryana. He faced a lot of challenges during his early life. At the tender age of one and half years, he fell victim to dengue due to which his legs impaired because of complications caused by injections to his legs.
Pooja, however, bowed out early in the quarterfinal round of the individuals’ event.