India suffered heartbreak from the archery arena as Sarita Kumari’s splendid run ended in quarterfinals, while armless wonder Sheetal Devi crashed out of the last-16 in the compound women’s open category at the Paralympics in Paris Paralympics 2024 on Saturday. Faridabad’s Sarita, who qualified as ninth seed, had a dominating outings in the first and second rounds before top-seed Oznur Cure Girdi of Korea halted her dream run in the last eight. Oznur, who smashed the world record to top the qualifying round with a score of 704 out of a maximum 720 points, shot three perfect 10s in the second end to take a healthy five-point lead.
Sarita took the third end and matched Oznur’s 30 with a perfect fourth end, but the Turkey archer remained four points in the lead, riding on her strong starts and wrapped it up with a 29 in the fifth end.
Sheetal, who draws the arrow with her toes, endured a blip in the second end where she shot the 7-point red ring to go down to Tokyo silver medalist Mariana Zuniga of Chile 137-138 in the pre-quarters.
All eyes were on Asian Para Games double gold medalist Sheetal, who also had bettered the previous world record of 698 shooting 703, to get a bye into the last-16 round.
Sheetal started out on a positive note as she hit two X dropped one point to take the opening set 29-28.
But her 7-point in the second arrow gave the Chilean seasoned archer the much-needed opening as she won the second end 27-26 to make it level (55-all).
It was a neck-and-neck affair for the duo in the next eight arrows, before Mariana edged out Sheetal in the final arrow by shooting a 9 as the Paralympics debutant Sheetal slipped to the 8-ring to lose by one-point.
On a day second seed Sheetal suffered an early elimination, ninth seed Sarita put up a dominated from the start to down Italy’s Eleonora Sarti 141-135 in a one-sided affair in her pre-quarters.
The ninth seeded Sarita, who won a team silver medal at the Asian Para Games last year, dropped just one point to take a four-point lead in the first end.
There was no looking back as she stretched the lead to five points in the second end where she shot one X (closer to the centre).
Her higher-ranked Italian rival pulled off two 10s and took the third end, but Sarita remained in control and sealed the issue with two solid ends.
Sarita earlier knocked out Nur Jannaton Abdul Jalil of Malaysia 138-124 in her first round clash.
In the open class, archers shoot from a sitting position at a distance of 50m at an 80cm five-ring target made up of the 10-6 point bands.
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