China dominates archery events at Asian Para Games in Jakarta

China topped the archery medal table at the 2018 Asian Para Games in Jakarta, Indonesia with six golds, two silvers and two bronzes, as Iran fell in second and India, with its first gold medal at the event, held third. Para athletes from Korea and Japan also finished on the podium.

Six individual titles were awarded on one day, of which four went to Chinese athletes.

India’s Harvinder Singh and Iran’s Zandi Mohammadreza were the only para archers not from the country to win individual gold medals on the archery field at the Gelora Bung Karno sports complex.

Singh won an historic first title for India in the men’s recurve open event, beating Chinese world champion Zhao Lixue, 6-0, in the final.

The biggest rivalry was between two-time Paralympic Champion Zahra Nemati and China’s Wu Chunyan, winner of the 2015 World Archery Para Championships, who was unbeaten in international competition until the Olympics in 2016 when she lost to Nemati.

In Jakarta, the Chinese archer finally got the better of Zahra, taking the final, 6-4, to claim gold.

Nemati's teammate Mohammadreza won the W1 men’s event, defeating China's Li Ji, while fellow Iranian archer Kakoosh Majid bagged bronze. The W1 women's title went to China’s Chen Minyi ahead of Japan’s Aya Shinohara.

China’s Lin Yueshan and Ai Xinliang won the compound open events.

The country also collected two of the three team medals, in the mixed-gender W1 and compound competitions. Iran took recurve gold.

Bhutan also made history in Jakarta, entering its first para archer into an international multisport event. Rigsel Pema, aged 30, finished 17th in the recurve men’s open competition.

​The archery competition at the 2018 Asian Para Games took place on 6-13 October in Jakarta, Indonesia.