The United States won its first archery medal of the Paralympic Tokyo Games on Friday after Santa Clarita’s Kevin Mather, former triathlete and member of the U.S. Paralympic alpine skiing team, took home gold in the men’s individual recurve.
He has done it! Kevin Mather won GOLD in the Individual Recurve Open in Tokyo! Kevin won five matches as the #17 seed in the tournament to win gold in his first Paralympics, taking down the #1 and #2 seeds in the process. Congratulations, Kevin!#Tokyo2020Paralympics #ParaArchery pic.twitter.com/dtUQONNkke
— Santa Clarita City (@santaclarita) September 3, 2021
As the No. 17 seed in the individual recurve W2 tournament, Mather defied expectations and struck gold on Friday in his first ever Paralympics, marking the first U.S. Paralympic recurve medal since 2008.
“It was a surprise performance from the Santa Clarita native, who entered the Games ranked No. 10 in the world and having previously only won silver in the team event at the 2017 world championships,” according to Team USA officials.
Advancing to the final at Yumenoshima Park Archery Field, Mather won four additional matches earlier on Friday where he defeated “Romania’s Eugen Patru in the round of 32, Iran’s Gholamreza Rahimi in the round of 16, Turkey’s Sadik Savas in the quarterfinals and India’s Harvinder Singh in the semifinals.”
Mather led early on in the final, closely followed by China’s Zhao Lixue, and was able to close out the last-set arrow, according to Team USA.
By a score of 6-4, Mather took home the gold for Team USA in the final round, according to Team USA.
“It’s always falling back to what works. I’ve shot so many hundreds, thousands of arrows, I know what works by now,” Mather said. “I know people are watching back home and they’re going nuts. There’s so many moments to soak up here, but this definitely is a big one.”
The Santa Clarita native, who was struck by a truck in a 2009 pedestrian collision, was briefly involved in archery as a child, but did not take it seriously until 2017 when he eventually became ranked No. 10 in the world, according to Team USA.
“This is the Paralympic Games,” Mather said to Team USA. “I’m under the spotlights, I’ve got the cameras in my face, I got people yelling, music … this is like a fantasy land, and I’m the one shooting on the stage.”
With an extensive history of athleticism, Mathers took part in the 2012 Ironman triathlon World Championship and finished second, all while being a member of the U.S. Paralympic alpine skiing team.
Additionally, Mathers holds five of the seven outdoor world archery records and won silver in the 2017 World Championships.
“It feels heavy at the moment. It feels incredible,” Mather said to Team USA following his gold medal win. “This is my first time seeing one from these Games up close. I’m just blown away.”
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