Haren
On a day India ticked off their pre-event target of reaching at least 25 medals, there were two close misses too as Simran in para athletics and the team of Harvinder Singh and Pooja in para archery finished fourth in their respective events at the Paris Paralympics.
At the Stade de France, Simran’s Round 1 and Semifinals had raised expectations of a possible podium finish in Women’s 100m T12. But in a closely-fought battle behind the champion, Simran finished fourth.
Accompanied by her guide Abhay Singh, Simran clocked 12.31 seconds. Cuba’s Omara Durand Elias comfortably won the gold with a timing of 11.81 seconds.
The silver went to Ukraine’s Oksana Boturchuk and bronze to Germany’s Katrin Mueller who recorded 12.17s and12.26s respectively. Earlier on Thursday, Simran had advanced to final after clocking 12.33 in the semifinals and had produced a season’s best effort of 12.17 in her heats on Wednesday.
Either of those two timings would have put her in contention for a medal in the four woman final.
She has one more event in Paris, the 200m where she is the World Champion. But Durand would start that event as the favourite too.
In archery, Harvinder came close to adding another medal after his gold in the individual event, but he and Pooja missed out on some golden opportunities during their last two matches to miss out on the podium. In the battle for bronze, India lost to Slovenia in a shoot off.
