Rakesh Kumar led the Indian challenge with a hat-trick of gold by clinching the men’s compound open crown with a win over Indonesia and partnered Suraj Singh to win the men’s compound open doubles against Chinese contestants, besides winning the mixed team gold with Sheetal Devi defeating Indonesia. Fourth gold for Team India was contributed by the phenomenal Shrine Para archer Sheetal Devi alongwith Jyoti in women’s compound open team event against Korea. However, she had to settle for silver in the tiebreaker against Singapore. Sarita had won a bronze in the women’s individual compound category.
Chief Executive Officer Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, Shri Anshul Garg expressed immense pride in the accomplishments of Shrine Para-archers at international arena and congratulated them for bringing laurels to the country, the UT of Jammu and Kashmir and the Shrine Board with blessings of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Ji. He underlined that glory earned in the games is giving new impetus to Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Sports Complex and to budding sports-persons as new sporting icons are emerging from the Sports Complex.
Pertinent to mention here that besides securing five medals in the recent held Para Asian Games, the Shrine Para-Archers bagged three medals at Czech Republic Para Archery World Championship in the month of July-2023 and along with the medals, also won quota places for the 2024 Paralympics in Paris.
Incidentally, the Shrine’s Archers had been felicitated by Hon’ble Lt. Governor, JK-UT who is also Chairman of the Shrine Board at a ceremony held at Raj Bhawan on November 8, 2023. He expressed satisfaction and pride that the Sports Complex is being developed as a center of excellence by the Board that has been successful in providing state of the art infrastructure, facilities, coaching and opportunities to the young sportspersons to prove their mettle which is being witnessed in the international events represented by our sports persons.