Archer Anh Nguyet was eliminated due to a 0.489 cm shortfall at the 2024 Olympics

In the shootout, each archer was allowed to shoot only one arrow, and the archer who shot closer to the center would win. Anh Nguyet shot first, putting the arrow between the 9 and 10 lines, but the organizers still counted it as 10 points, 0.61 cm from the center.

This put some psychological pressure on Fallah. The Iranian archer took a long time to aim, waiting until there were two seconds left to release the string, but the arrow went almost perfectly. The shot scored 10 and was 0.121 cm from the center, 0.489 cm more than Anh Nguyet. Fallah looked up at the big screen to see the result, then shouted loudly, raised his hands high and spun around in victory.

The two archers met when Anh Nguyet ranked 37th in the qualifying round with 648 points, while Mobina Fallah ranked 28th with 652 points. The match was supposed to take place in the early morning of August 1, but was postponed for a day due to heavy rain in Paris.

Before the match, the two athletes were considered equally matched. Anh Nguyet ranked 70th on the World Archery Federation (WA) rankings, one place below Fallah. WA statistics showed that the two archers had an average score of 8.8 per arrow. However, the Vietnamese athlete had more international competition experience, winning 14 out of 26 matches, while the Iranian athlete won three out of nine matches.

When Ánh Nguyệt and Fallah took to the field early this morning, the sky was still cloudy, the wind was stronger and there was a risk of rain. But the organizers still decided to let the two archers compete. The match consisted of five sets, each winning two points. The first archer to reach six points would win the match, and if there was a tie, there would be a shootout.

Set one ended in a draw when both scored 25 points. In set two, Anh Nguyet and Fallah both started well with 10 points. But in the second round, the Vietnamese archer only scored seven points while her opponent scored eight. Set three ended with a nine for Anh Nguyet, while Fallah waited two seconds to release the string but also scored the same, winning 27-26.

The third set belonged to Anh Nguyet when she scored three nines, while her opponent scored one eight. In the fourth set, Anh Nguyet's heart rate increased in inverse proportion to the scores of 10, 9, 8 respectively. Meanwhile, Fallah shot steadily with two 10s and one nine.

Continuing to be in a chase, Anh Nguyet remained calm in set five and shot the first two shots to get 10 and nine, while her opponent got nine and eight. After that, the Vietnamese archer shot safely to get eight points, forcing her opponent to shoot 10 points to tie, but in the end only got nine.

Tied 5-5 after five sets, the two archers entered the penalty shootout, where Anh Nguyet lost, by nearly half a centimeter, despite both scoring 10 points.

This is the second consecutive Olympics that Anh Nguyet has lost in the round of 32 of the women's individual archery. At Tokyo 2020, she also drew 5-5 with Japanese archer Ren Hayakawa, but lost 7-8 in the penalty shootout.

Anh Nguyet's regrettable defeat also ended the journey of Vietnamese archery at the 2024 Olympics. Three hours before the Anh Nguyet match, Le Quoc Phong lost 0-6, with a score of 24-28, 28-30, 26-27, to Moldovan archer Dan Olaru, also in the men's individual round of 32.