Payal stuns Sheetal to bag compound women’s title

Payal Nag, the world’s first quadruple amputee archer, stunned her training partner and World champion Sheetal Devi 139-136 to clinch the compound women’s title at the first World Archery Para Series in Bangkok on Saturday.

The 18-year-old Payal, who trains at the Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board Sports Complex, took an early 27-25 lead before Sheetal, an armless archer, levelled the score at 54-54. But a gritty Payal fought back to establish a three-point lead and win gold. Payal had upset Sheetal in the final of the National para archery championships in Jaipur last year.

In a field featuring archers from nine countries in the World Para Series, India finished at the top with 16 medals, including seven gold, five silver and four bronze. Indians bagged three medals on the basis of qualification rankings. Swati Chaudhary and Anju Tanwar (946) won silver in W1 women’s doubles, while Swati and Adil Ansari (1119) took W1 mixed team silver. In W1 men’s doubles, Adil and Vinayak Breed (1209) earned bronze.

The results: Gold-medal match: Recurve men’s doubles: India (Harvinder Singh, Vijay Sundi) bt Chinese Taipei (Li Bing-yu, Tveng Lung-Hui) 6-2; compound men’s doubles: India (Toman Kumar, Shyam Sunder Swami) bt Chinese Taipei (Wu Chung-Hung, Yang Jyun-Kai) 153-146; compound women’s doubles: India (Sheetal Devi, Payal Nag) bt Kazakhstan (Zhanat Aitimova, Aizada Seidan) 150-147; compound mixed team: India (Sheetal Devi, Toman Kumar) bt Indonesia (Teodora Ferelly, Firmansyah Arif) 153-146; recurve women: Bhawna bt Phattharaphon Pattawaeo (Tha) 6-0; compound men: Toman Kumar bt Jonathon Mile (Aus) 146-142; compound women: Payal Nag bt Sheetal Devi 139-136; Para recurve men: Kholidin (Ina) bt Harvinder Singh 7-3; W1 women: Kim Ok Geum (Kor) bt Swati Chaudhary 7-3.

Bronze: Recurve women’s doubles: India (Bhawna, Rajshri Rathod) bt Japan (Miki HAruno, Onodera Asako) 6-0; recurve mixed team: India (Bhawna, Vijay Sundi) bt Slovenia (Ziva Lavrinc, Dejan Fabcic) 5-4 (19-17); compound men: Shyam Sunder Swami bt Rakesh Kumar 146-142; W1 women: Lee Eunhee (Kor) bt Anju Tanwar 6-2.