After winning the historic bronze medal at the ongoing Tokyo Paralympics, archer Harvinder Singh was buoyant as he stated that his third-place finish at the Games will inspire him to do better in future tournaments.
The 31-year-old on Friday became the first Indian to win an archery medal at the Paralympics. Harvinder started and finished his day with a shoot-off win in the round of 32 and in the bronze medal match respectively.
The Indian spent almost 12 hours at the Yumenoshima Park Archery Field and overcame the vivid conditions to finish on the podium. "When we landed here it was warm, but from past 3-4 days it is raining and during my match, it was also raining. In my first and second match, it was raining and the way I was aiming arrow in first, I did in second," Harvinder told ANI.
"In the semifinal match, it was raining first, then it stopped [raining] and winds started blowing. So it was three conditions in one match. And because of those things or because of me, there were some shortcomings but I fulfilled them by winning the bronze medal later," he added.
Harvinder defeated South Korea's Min Su Kim by 6-5 to find a podium finish. The bronze medal match was forced into the shoot-off after both archers shared the spoils in the five sets. He played a total of three shoot-offs on Friday and won all three on his way to bronze.
"Everyone here is calling me shoot-off master. So I am feeling happy that I played three shoot-off and won all three. To win the medal it's necessary to practice the shoot-off because the shoot-off happens every time. If it doesn't happen in the first [match], it will happen later as matches get tough."
"And all the practice that you did in past years, you have to show that in one shot [in shoot-off]. You have to give your best with proper finishing and shot," Harvinder said.
Kuldeep, the coach of Harvinder said, "I reminded Harvinder that how he won the gold in Asian Games and he has to repeat the same thing here [in Tokyo]. Kuldeep Sharma and I trained all the archers for shoot-off and one to one matches."
Talking about his next target, Harvinder said: "I will start the training when I will return as our World Championship will be happening in February and after that, we will have Asian Para Games. This medal [bronze] will remind me of my hard work and will inspire me to do more [hard work]."
( With inputs from ANI )
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