At the last announced Paralympics the athlete, already a world champion, achieved his goal of winning the Olympic tournament by beating the Chinese champion Ai Xinliang
Medal day in the afternoon for the individual men’s Compound Open. Italy was absent after the elimination of Matteo Bonacina in the 16th round and the American Matt Stutzman, famous in the archery world and beyond like “The Armless Archer”, the athlete who was able to pave the way for armless archers with his unshakable resilience. The histrionic Stars and Stripes champion, 41 years old and with a life full of misadventures and anecdotes, had already announced that Paris would be his fourth and last Paralympics. After winning individual silver at London 2012, a year after his international debut, a team world championship in 2015 and an individual world championship in 2022, he arrived at the Esplanade des Invalides with a single goal: to finish with Paralympic gold his love affair with the compound bow. And isn’t it wonderful when reality surpasses dreams and fantasy?
what an ending
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Stutzmann’s show is in his performances and in his reactions after each volley and at the end of each challenge. In fact, the final arrived after having put on a show with two play-offs, the first in the round of 16 against Forsberg (Fin) with a 10 that surpassed that of his opponent, literally smashing the target in the center of the target after 141-141 and then, after beating in the quarterfinals the world vice champion MacQueen (GBR) 143-142, wins the second shoot-off in the semi-final with a 10 row against the Chinese He: 148-148 (10-9). Is that enough? No, the final act against the other Chinese, Ai ?!) archery with his feet, took home the coveted Paralympic gold medal with a path that would be the envy of “able-bodied” archers which ended with four 30s and a 29: Ai Xinliang, gold team at Rio 2016 and individual bronze at Tokyo 2020, not just anyone, is forced to give up. The match ends at 149-147 with the jubilation of the fans, the leaps of joy and the tears of Stutzmann, who bows towards an audience, gratified to say the least for having witnessed the performance of a champion capable of writing everything with his foot another wonderful page in sports history.
Chinese bronze
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In the bronze final, the other Chinese competitor, He Zhao, won the medal with the last arrow and, trailing by one point at the end of the third volley, managed to turn the situation around in the last two fractions of the game by overtaking by just one. length goes to the Indian Rakesh Kumar (146-147) with two consecutive “perfect scores” that make his opponent’s 28 and 30 useless. Overall, the level of challenge was truly stratospheric.
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