Team USA’s Matt Stutzman shot the arrows of his life and emerged victorious in the para-archery in the men’s individual compound open event to bag the gold and create a new Paralympic record of 149 points in the elimination rounds in the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.
In the 5-end final, it was Stutzman against the People’s Republic of China’s Ai Xinliang, who won the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games bronze medal. The two archers began to alternate their perfect 30-point ends and the tie went into the first end.
After the second end, Ai has one point ahead of him but Stutzman leveled up the score to tie by giving him straight crosses without dropping any point in the third end, while Ai has dropped one point by giving Stutzman five points in the same end. Stutzman was able to put up another perfect score and this time round, it was the fourth end when Ai tripped up.
During the pre-game, Stutzman led 1 point to start the fifth and final end of the match against AI. For the last three shots, Stutzman maintained his lead and extended it to the end of the match with a Paralympic record of 149 over Ai, who scored 147 to warrant the title of Paralympic gold medalist, while He Zihao received the bronze Paralympic medalist title.
In these Paralympic Games, Stutzman gave outstanding performances; in the match, he shot a gorgeous shot to beat Forsberg from Finland; in the semi-finals, he beat the defending gold medalist He Zihao from the People’s Republic of China in a one-arrow shoot-off, where he came across with his final match opponent, Ai Xinliang from China.
This incredible victory has happened twelve years after Stutzman’s first Paralympic Games’ medal, silver in London 2012.
As for Stutzman, after clinching a gold medal in his last Paralympics competition, he said, “Well, I don’t think it has quite hit me yet.” “I understood before starting this that it would mean the end of my games; there is a lot of feeling here, and I did not come here to win this medal.”
Stutzman confirms that these will be his final Games
A Para archer hailing from Iowa and of 41 years of age, this is the last time he is participating at these Paralympic Games when he is at the peak of his career. He hardly leaves behind any precedent when it comes to the extraordinary way that he has revolutionized Para archery.
After winning the gold medal at Paris 2024, Stutzman described the impact para archery has made in his life. ‘It changed my life completely’, going from not knowing how he was going to feed his family to winning medals and feeding his family.
At these Games, much was seen of Stutzman in his role as the ‘armless archer’ as he said: ‘My first match was against an armless archer who I was mentoring, and this is the first time in the Paralympics that two armless archers shot against each other. That was great and it is history.
“Well, I am not upset because there are wonderful blind archers who are going to continue the legacy,” added Stutzman. ”I will always be here, and I will still be supporting and helping and getting them to do what I feel and do.” It is their turn to be the star.
Stutzman said in the interview that he said, ‘I’m done’ after bowing, ‘I left the bow and gave it a bow and said, I’m done.’ As soon as he stepped down from the stage, he cried like crazy. Saying he could hear his family cheering beside the noise produced by the crowd, he uttered, “This is for them. ”
