Brown leads GB 1-2
Danielle Brown successfully defended her Paralympic Games title by edging out compatriot Mel Clarke.
Last Updated: 04/09/12 5:17pm
Great Britain's Danielle Brown successfully defended her Paralympic Games title by edging out compatriot Mel Clarke in archery's women's individual compound final.
Yorkshirewoman Brown's London 2012 success adds to her Paralympic gold in 2008 and the Commonwealth Games team title in Delhi two years ago.
Brown met Clarke, bronze medallist from Beijing, in the final and won 6-4 in a contest that went down to the final arrow at the Royal Artillery Barracks.
The British duo could not be separated early on, scoring 27-27 in the first set and 29-29 in the second, before three arrows of nine saw Brown, who was shooting first, take a 4-2 lead.
Clarke responded to take the fourth set 29-26 and level at 4-4 to force a fifth.
She required a maximum 10 score on the final arrow to win, but she shot a seven - her worst arrow of the final - as the pressure told and Brown claimed victory.
Catch-up
"(Not having the final shot) helps a lot. My arrows had all gone and she had to play catch-up, as it were," Brown said.
"It was a 10 to tie the set and then we would've had to do a one-arrow shoot off.
"I've been really feeling (the pressure) the last couple of weeks, so to actually come here and manage to keep my head in the right place, I'm chuffed to bits about that.
"It's been crazy. I didn't think it would have affected me the way it has."
In the semi-finals, Brown claimed a 6-2 semi-final success over Marina Lyzhnikova and Clarke beat Stepanida Artakhinova, another Russian, 6-0.
Artakhinova claimed bronze with a 7-3 defeat of her team-mate Lyzhnikova.