Paris. The Indian pair of Sheetal Devi and Rakesh Kumar made it to the semi-finals of the mixed team compound open archery event of the Paris Paralympics here on Monday. Sheetal and Rakesh easily defeated the Indonesian pair of Teodora Audi Ayudia Ferlin and Ken Swegumilang 154-143 in the quarter-finals.
In the mixed compound open category, the top seeded pair of Sheetal and Rakesh showed excellent form during their journey to the semi-finals. In the semi-finals, the Indian pair will face the Iranian pair of Fatemeh Hemati and Hadi Nouri. The Iranian pair defeated the Brazilian pair of Jean Carla Gogel and Reinaldo Wagner Charao Ferreira 153-151 in the quarter-finals. Seventeen-year-old Sheetal was born in 2007 with a rare congenital disorder called phocomelia due to which her limbs remain underdeveloped. Due to this disease, her hands could not develop completely.
39-year-old Rakesh suffered a spinal cord injury and after recovering from it in 2009, he realised that he would have to remain in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, which led him to depression and he even thought of committing suicide. On Sunday, Rakesh lost the bronze medal match of the men’s compound open category to China’s He Jihao by one point.