Para archery world championship

Para Archery World Championship: As he got ready to shoot his first arrow in the Men's Recurve Individual Open in the ongoing Paris Paralympics on Wednesday, India's Harvinder Singh had decided to go all out and create pressure from the start itself. His strategy proved successful as Harvinder scripted history by winning a gold medal, becoming the first Indian para-archer to bag the top honours in the sport in the quadrennial spectacle.

Harvinder, who clinched India's first archery medal in the Tokyo Paralympics, changed the colour of his medal with an emphatic 6-0 win over his Polish opponent Lukasz Ciszek at the Invalides. When asked about his mindset during the gold medal match, the 33-year-old said he was focused on winning the gold and went with the strategy of taking the lead early to get relieved of the pressure.

"I was extremely happy when I reached the final as it confirmed India's one medal but I realised that I can't accept anything less than gold and I would not be satisfied with silver. During that time you can't make any mistakes and I had discussed it with my coach. You have to be mentally focused for the pressure match. For the final match, my strategy was to put pressure from the start," Harvinder told IANS during a virtual interaction.