Paris Paralympics: Indian archers Harvinder, Pooja enter mixed team quarters

Paris: Indian archers Harvinder Singh and Pooja Jatyan defeated Australia's Taymon Kenton-Smith and Amanda Jennings in the shoot-off to enter the quarterfinals of the recurve mixed team open in the Paralympics here on Thursday.

A day after making history as India's first archer to win a gold medal at the Paralympics, Harvinder teamed up with Pooja to raise hopes of securing an unparalleled second medal.

The duo, seeded fifth, quickly surged to a 4-0 lead, capitalising on some inconsistent shooting by the Australian pair.

Harvinder and Pooja clinched the first two sets with scores of 31-18 and 35-24.

However, the Indian pair faltered in the next two sets, losing 27-33 and 24-33, forcing the match into a tense shoot-off.

Harvinder and Pooja dominated the shoot-off, winning 16-5 to set up a quarterfinal clash against Poland.

In the recurve open class, archers shoot from a standing position at a distance of 70m at a 122cm target made up of 10 concentric circles scoring from 10 points down to 1 point from the centre outwards.

Hailing from a family of farmers from Haryana, Harvinder was just one and a half years old, when he contracted dengue and due to the side effects of some injections administered to him, his legs were left impaired.

Pooja had on Tuesday lost out in the individual quarterfinals.

In 1997, when Pooja was just two months old, she became a victim of medical negligence when she was administered a wrong injection for high fever, resulting in polio in her left leg.