Avani Lekhara defends her title with a new record and gives India first gold medal in Paris. Mona wins bronze
gold medal at stake, the top two — India’s Avani Lekhara and Korea’s Yunri Lee — were tied on points. The pressure was squarely on Lekhara as she was desperately fighting to defend the gold medal she had won in Tokyo. Lee, on the other hand, had peaked at the right time and shot multiple 10.8s to stay neck and neck with the Indian. Under pressure from her opponent, Lekhara fired a 9.9 in her penultimate shot. The Korean took advantage of the Indian’s wobble and fired another fantastic 10.7 to secure a 0.8 advantage going into the final shot.
Even the hopeless optimists must have given up on the hope of the gold medal. It seemed the curse of Olympics ‘near misses’ was following India to the Paralympics too. But that’s when sport teaches you a lesson. That it’s not over till it’s over.
10.5 in her final shot for a final score of 249.7 to improve upon her own Paralympic record by 0.1. Now, all eyes were on the Korean. It was her medal to lose. Perhaps the weight of expectations was too much for Lee to bear as she ended up shooting a shocking 6.8 and surrendered the gold. Lekhara was once again the champion, India got its first gold medal in Paris.
In doing so, Lekhara became the first Indian ever to win back-to-back Paralympic gold medals. And she is just 22. “It was a very close final. There was very little gap between 1, 2 and 3. I was focussing on my thought process and not the result,” Avani said after her historic win.
“I have two more matches to go, so I’m focusing on winning more medals for the country,”
