The Paralympics Took place in Rio earlier this month (Sept 2016), with competitors from around the world all contributing to the success of the games.
Team GB performing particularly well in the archery events. Jess Stretton won gold, defeating fellow Brit Jo Frith in the individual archery by 137-124. The 16 year old spoke to the BBC. “I had to try to tell myself to keep calm because I did feel under pressure and sometimes I can freak out because of that,” she said.
“I had to trick myself into thinking it was just another shooting session which was quite difficult – but I managed it.”
Frith’s appearance in the event was made all the more impressive by her health prior to the event. As she told World Archery:
“I’ve got a neurological problem. I couldn’t move and I was in more pain than usual. It was really chronic pain. The doctors here did everything they could and in the end it was getting pretty serious so they sent me off to the hospital for about two days,” Jenkins told the website.
“And then we came this morning to see whether I could pull my bow back and to see Whether I could shoot. It looked okay and not too painful. And so I just went for it really.”
Victoria Jenkins won bronze in the event, completing an impressive three medal haul for Team GB in the event.
Paralympics Shooting
Meanwhile, Iran’s female sporting shooter Sareh Javanmardi won a second gold in the P4 mixed 50-meter pistol SH1 in Rio, scoring 189.5 points to finish champion in the event. China’s Yang Chao, finished second with 186.5 to win silver, while Oleksii Denysiuk of Ukraine finished in third place to win bronze.
Indeed, women were strongly represented throughout the shooting events. Out of the six mixed shooting events, four gold medals went to the ladies, including Slovakia’s Veronika Vadovicova in R3 (mixed 10m air rifle prone SH1) and Slovenia’s Veselka Pevec in R4.