The Paralympic Games in Paris have been a mixed bag so far for the Indian contingent. After a medal-less Thursday, India ended up winning four of them on Friday and were expected to land as many on Saturday and inch closer to the double-digit mark on the medal table.
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While the shooting team ensured the nation did not end the day empty-handed, there were a few disappointments in store, especially in the archery section.
Ultimately, India’s performances on Day 3 highlighted the unpredictable nature of sport and how razor thin the difference between a place on the podium and a heartbreak can be when it comes to a sporting event as big as the Paralympics.
The highlight of the third day at the Paralympics was Rubina Francis winning bronze in the P2 women’s 10m air pistol SH1 event, taking India’s medal count to five, four of them coming from the shooting team.
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Rubina’s bronze, Sheetal’s heartbreak and other key moments from Day 3 of Paris Paralympics
It was a dream come true for the 25-year-old shooter from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, who would overcome physical disabilities as well as financial hardships to realise her dream of standing on the podium at the Paralympic Games.
Rubina emulates her idol in Paris
It was Gagan Narang’s bronze in the 2012 London Olympics which inspired her to take up the sport in her early teens. On Saturday, Francis would end up emulating her idol with a final score of 211.1 after 22 shots, finishing with a bronze in a topsy-turvy event in which she found herself at the silver medal position one moment and outside the medal zone in the other.
The costs associated with procuring equipment can often prove detrimental for aspiring shooters and it certainly was a challenge for Rubina, whose father worked as a mechanic in a garage and her mother as a nurse.
Her parents, however, did not let financial challenges stand in the way of their daughter becoming a world-class shooter, and world-class shooter, working day in and day out to get Rubina admitted to the MP Shooting Academy in 2015.
That wasn’t all. Rubina had the additional challenge of dealing with talipes, known more commonly as club foot. Neither could Rubina stand still or take aim properly while sitting as a result of this leg dysfunction, which raised doubts over her future as a para-shooter.
This is where her coaches stepped in, not only procuring special shoes to take care of her balance but also working on her posture.
Rubina had trained under some of the best shooting coaches in the country including Jai Prakash Nautiyal and Subhash Rana, brother Jaspal Rana, and it was their guidance along with her dedication and hard work that ultimately led to a first Paralympic medal by a female pistol shooter from India.
Among the other positive developments from the third day’s events were Tokyo 2020 silver medallist Suhas Yathiraj and Sukant Kadam winning their respective men’s singles SL4 matches to enter the semi-finals, assuring the nation of at least one badminton medal in the process.
However, it was in the archery section where Team India suffered perhaps its biggest heartbreak of the Paris Games so far.
Sheetal Devi’s campaign ends in a heartbreak
Para-archer Sheetal Devi was one of India’s strongest medal hopes ahead of the Paris Paralympics alongside the likes of Avani Lekhara, Sumit Antil among others. It was her inspirational journey to the top of the world rankings, after all, that had made her a medal favourite in the French capital in the first place.
The 17-year-old from Jammu, after all, is part of a rare breed of archers without arms, who rely on their legs, shoulders and jaw to shoot arrows. Sheetal was born with phocomelia, a rare congenital disorder in which the hands or feet are attached close to the trunk with limbs being underdeveloped or absent entirely.
That, however, hardly stopped her from achieving global success in para-archery.
It wasn’t until 2022 at the age of 15 when Sheetal finally decided to let go of her inhibitions and take up the sport seriously. Aided by her coaches Kuldeep Vedwan and Abhilasha Chaudhary, who helped produce a special device developed by American archer Matt Stutzman which helped in shooting with legs, Sheetal would compete in the National Championship in Haryana in March-April that year.
And in just a couple of years, she would achieve it all, from winning silver in the World Championships as well as two golds and one silver in the Asian Para Games, both coming last year. Not only was she the only international champion without upper limbs, but she would also rise to the top of the women’s individual compound open world rankings in such a short span of time.
Sheetal had sent a warning to her rivals in Paris earlier this week after finishing second in the ranking round with a score of 703 out of a possible 720,
briefly setting a new world record and earning a direct entry into the Round of 16 in the process.
Unfortunately for Sheetal, her journey in the individual competition in her maiden Paralympic appearance would end earlier than expected with a marginal 137-138 defeat at the hands of Chile’s Mariana Zuniga. Sheetal had grabbed the lead in the first end, and the two competitors would then be tied on scores of 55, 82 and 111 in the next three.
The Indian, however, paid the price for a couple of 8s in the final end to bow out of the competition without a medal around her neck. For someone who had achieved it all except for a Paralympic medal, Saturday’s defeat was something of a lesson. That one’s credentials does not automatically translate to a place on the podium in events such as these, and that it’s the mindset and the performance on the day that counts.
Sheetal, fortunately, has a long career and many more Paralympic appearances ahead of her and will rely on the lessons learnt in Paris to come out stronger in Los Angeles four years from now to capture that individual medal.
Double Asian Games medallist Sarita Devi, who also hails from Jammu and Kashmir, suffered a similar fate, though she managed to go a step further compared to Sheetal. Sarita defeated Italy’s Eleonora Sarti 141-135 in the Round of 16 but would suffer a 140-145 loss against Turkey’s Cure Girdi Oznur, who had breached Sheetal’s score to top the ranking round earlier.
There were heartbreaks in other events as well, with Tokyo 2020 gold medallist Krishna Nagar, another medal favourite in Paris, suffering his second defeat in as many outings by retiring hurt from his SH6 Group B clash against Thailand’s Nattapong Meechai, who was leading 22-20, 11-3 in any case.
Additionally, Parveen Kumar finished a disappointing eighth in the men’s javelin F57 final while rowers Anita and Narayan Konganapalle finished third in the PR3 Mixed Double Sculls Repechage race to miss out on a medal.
As for cycling, neither Jyoti Gaderia nor Arshad Shaik could reach the finals after finishing 11th and 17th in Women’s C1-3 500m Time Trial and Men’s C1-3 1000m Time Trial respectively.
Fortunately for the Indian contingent, there’s an entire week left in the Paris Paralympics, which should give them more than enough time to breach their 19-medal haul in Tokyo, their biggest in the Paralympics to date.