Phillips and Chaisty reach quarter-finals in last archery event of Tokyo 2020

Dave Phillips and Hazel Chaisty brought the curtain down on ParalympicsGB’s archery campaign in Tokyo with a quarter-final defeat in the mixed team recurve.

The British pair had earlier upset the seedings by beating Turkey’s Yagmur Sengul and Sadik Savas, who had qualified three places higher, 5-1 to reach the last eight.

But the heavens opened and the rain came down as they prepared to face Iran’s Zahra Nemati and Gholamreza Rahimi for a place in the semi-finals.

Phillips nailed two tens with his opening two arrows of the match but Iran edged the first set 35-32 to take an early lead.

The Paralympic champions from Rio 2016 doubled that advantage with a nervy 30-28 second-set win and closed out a 6-0 victory following the third, making the most of their second seed status.

“I shot well on the practice field but I couldn’t convert it here,” said Chaisty. “They felt like good shots but they just weren’t hitting where I was aiming.

“We did have a sudden downpour. Dave had chalked up his hands and I was frantically chalking my hands. It does have a factor, of course it does but it didn’t bother the Iranians at all.

“We’ve got the World Championships in February so there isn’t much switching off. We’ll take what we’ve learned here, take it home and come back better.

“I really enjoyed that, me and Dave together – we’re just such a great team. We’re smiling under our masks; we’re calling each other silly names on the line!”

The mixed team recurve marked the end of competition for ParalympicsGB archers.

The team heads home with two medals after Phoebe Paterson Pine won individual compound open gold while Victoria Rumary took bronze in the women’s individual W1.

Phillips added: “We’re a team, we shoot together and we win and lose together.

“We prepared for the conditions, the heat and the humidity but then it rains like it does back home.”