Harvinder Singh drew his arrow back. Hands shaking a little, he held the pose. He had hit two nines in this Paralympics final, as he stayed in touch with Poland's Lukasz Ciszek's three-nine set. Having won the first set comfortably, all he needed was another nine to take the tie point and keep the final going. After a long breath, he let the arrow fly... ten. Near dead centre. By his side, the judge's jaw dropped open just a little bit. Beyond her, Ciszek's head dropped significantly more. The score read 4-0, and despite there being atleast one more set to go, the final was done then and there, and everyone knew it. Paris Paralympics 2024, men's recurve open champion: India's Harvinder Singh. In the end, he would win the final 6-0.
On a clear Parisian evening, Harvinder become the first Indian archer to enter a Paralympic (or Olympic) final and then topped it up with becoming the first to win gold. Having walked into Paris the first Indian archer to ever medal at a Paralympics (or indeed Olympics), he had just made the best possible upgrade... and he did it with clutch shots like the one he hit in that second set of the final, the kind that drove past the target and right into the opponent's spirit.
All the way to the final, he had hit a series of these clutch shots to close out sets, hitting six set-closing, set-winning tens across the quarterfinal and semifinal. What makes it standout even more is that those tens came after he had tied the first set (in the quarters) and dropped the first set (in the semifinal). Those weren't just 10s for 10s' sake, those were 10s pulled out when Harvinder needed them most.
At the end, in the biggest match of his life, he went on to hit four tens and five nines. That's scores of 28, 29, 28 (out of 30, mind). In a Paralympic final. Incredible. At no point did he look like he would drop a set, at no point did he even allow Ciszek into the lead.
It was a level of domination, and calm control of nerves, Indian fans have rarely seen from their sportspersons.
Entering the Games, few had given Harvinder a chance for gold. He may have been the reigning bronze medalist, but he came into Paris ranked 12th in the world and having made just one final of a major international event in his career until then. He further went under the radar by finishing a decent-but-nothing-great 9th in the ranking round. And that helped him ease through the early knockouts, building up confidence for the big-pressure rounds.
But Harvinder has always been a clutch shooter. In fact, he won three single-arrow shoot-offs en-route that Tokyo bronze (including in the medal match), and he showed that nervelessness had only been built on over the past three years.
Currently also pursuing a PhD in economics in the Punjabi University at Patiala, Harvinder had lost major function in his legs after having contracted dengue aged just one and a half (requiring injections for treatment that had bad side-effects)... and it wasn't until the 2012 Paralympics that he realised sport could be a career option. He got into the sport slowly, and by 2017 he made his World Championship debut, finishing seventh.
It's been some journey from those early days, but now aged 33, he stands tall as a double Paralympic medalist: with a ceiling-breaking bronze and now a historic gold that will see his name etched in Indian sports' hall of fame.