Country’s best archer Ruman Sana grabbed gold in individual recurve event of Asia Cup: Stage-3 after beating China’s Shi Zhenqi by 7-3 set points in the final in Clark City, Philippines yesterday.

It is the second major medal for Sana this year after he grabbed a bronze medal in World Archery Championship in Netherlands in June while becoming the country’s second athlete to qualify for the Olympics directly.

However, the 24-year-old had to fight back from 1-3 set points down to win the gold medal yesterday. From 1-3 sets down, Sana won the following two sets to ensure his fourth international gold medal -- the first came in 1st Asian Grand Prix in 2014, the second from International Archery tournament in Tajikistan in 2018 while the third from the 2nd ISSF International Solidarity Archery Championships in Dhaka in 2018.

“I’m really happy. I always try to follow my shooting timing and do the same thing. I found good rhythm throughout the tournament. This kind of performance will give me confidence ahead of Tokyo Olympics,” Sana said after the final.

“To be honest, a different sort of belief is working inside me since I won the bronze medal in World Archery Championships where I competed against world’s top archers. Now I don’t feel any pressure when I take arrows,” Sana explained the secret to his success. 

However, before his departure, the lad from Khulna was not too confident about producing good results after having recently started using new instruments.

“Actually, I wasn’t being able to score well with new instruments, so I started using the old ones in Philippines and scored better in the official training. Then my teammates advised me to play with the old instruments and I did it and got the result,” Sana explained.

Sana faced stiff challenge in the final but he overcame it to have the final laugh.

“The individual event was the third and last event for me as I took part in men’s team event first and then played the mixed event. So, it was a very tight schedule for me. I could not have lunch at hotel, Instead I took snacks before the final match.

“Though I felt tired but I shot well in the first set which ended in a draw. Then I saw my arrows were going upward and I lost the second set. Afterwards, I concentrated more on my shooting and continued putting steady performance and won the match,” said Sana, who had earlier lost four finals in different international competitions.

Sana was also part of the recurve men’s and mixed team events. The recurve men’s team, comprising Sana, Tamimul Islam and Hakim Ahmed Rubel, had to be content with a silver medal after losing to China by 3-5 set points while the mixed team comprising Sana and Beauty Roy beat Chinese Taipei by 5-1 set points to win bronze medal.

It is the first time that Sana won medals in all three events of an international tournament, a feat he had achieved in domestic competition in 2014 where all three medals were gold.