Chen Minyi

On September 1,Dongguan athlete Chen Minyi won the gold medal in the women's individual W1 final with a score of 142. It was her second gold medal and China's fourth in the archery competitions in the Tokyo Paralympic Games. Her score of 142 points in the final will also be ratified as a new Paralympic record by one point.

Last Saturday (August 28), in the Archery W1 composite bow mixed team competition, 31-year-old Chen and Zhejiang athlete Zhang Tianxin won the gold medal with a score of 138, winning the first gold for the Chinese delegation in the archery events. It was also the first gold medal won by a Guangdong athlete at the Tokyo Paralympic Games.

Chen is a native girl from Shilong Town, Dongguan. As a result of a congenital disease, she has to use a wheelchair. In September 2009, Chen was selected for the Dongguan Disabled Archery Team at the age of 19. Since then, her sports career started.

In recent years, Chen has represented the country to participate in international events such as the Asian Para Games and Asian Para Championships, in which she achieved good results.

At the 2018 Asian Paralympic Games, she won gold medals in the women's composite bow W1 level individual ranking and mixed team events. At the 2019 World Paralympic Archery Championships, she won fourth place in the women's W1 composite bow individual elimination event, won the women's W1 composite bow individual ranking tournament and gained the chance to compete in the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic.

According to Qiu Xingyang, the Guangdong Disabled Archery Team coach, Chen used a composite bow without a rearview mirror and sight for the W1 level competition. She could only use the front midpoint to aim at a target 50 meters away. "In other words, the ten rings she aimed at 50 meters away was about the size of a grain of rice."

Coach Qiu revealed that Chen has been training hard for 12 years, practising 6 hours and shooting more than 250 arrows a day. "The strength of pulling the bow is like lifting a bucket of over 30 kilograms. Her pulling strength training is equivalent to lifting a bucket of over 30 kilograms more than 100 times a day."

"In the past decade, all my efforts have been for the Olympic gold medal, which is the top goal of my sports career." Now, Chen, who participated in the Paralympic Games for the first time, has achieved the highest goal of her life. Congratulations to this courageous girl!

As of September 1, Dongguan athletes have won 2 gold medals, 3 silver, 1 fifth place and 1 sixth place at Tokyo Paralympics.