Paris. Tokyo Paralympics bronze medallist Harvinder Singh entered the quarterfinals of the Paris Paralympics men’s recurve open event here on Wednesday, continuing his campaign to win consecutive archery medals. India’s only Paralympic medallist archer Harvinder defeated Seng Lung Hui of Chinese Taipei 7-3 before defeating Setiawan Setiawan of Indonesia 6-2 in the pre-quarterfinals.
Harvinder lost the first set by just one point (27-28) after a poor start of eight points but soon regained composure and put pressure on his Indonesian opponent and scored three consecutive 28 points. Setiawan could score only 15 points in the fourth set after scoring 25 and 27 points by hitting the wrong arrow. Earlier, after drawing the first set 25-25 against the Chinese Taipei archer, Harvinder took a 3-1 lead with a 27-26 win in the second set.
In the third set, Lung Hui equalized the score to 3-3 with a win of 29-26. But Lung Hui fell behind in the next two sets and Harvinder kept his composure and won the sets 24-23 and 25-17 to win the match and secure a place in the last 16. In the recurve open category, archers stand and aim from a distance of 70 meters.
Harvinder, who belongs to a farmer family of Ajit Nagar in Haryana, had contracted dengue when he was one and a half years old and was given injections for its treatment. Unfortunately, due to the side effects of these injections, he lost mobility in his legs.
Despite initial challenges, he took up archery and finished seventh on his debut at the 2017 Para Archery World Championships.
Then he went on to win a gold medal at the 2018 Jakarta Asian Para Games and during the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, his father converted his farm into an archery range so that he could train. Harvinder created history three years ago by winning a bronze medal at the Tokyo Paralympics as it was India’s first archery medal. Along with success in archery, he is also pursuing a PhD degree in economics.