The Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC) secured its first archery gold of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games with a shoot-off victory against Italy in the mixed team recurve open event at the Yumenoshima Final Field, courtesy of Margarita Sidorenko and Kirill Smirnov.

Sidorenko and Smirnov both scored nine in the deciding shoot-off, while Elisabetta Mijno and Stefano Travisani could only notch a nine and an eight to give the RPC a 5-4 victory in the final.

Both pairs had earlier taken two sets each.

Sidorenko and Smirnov got off to a flier by winning the first set 36-34, but the Italian duo hit back with 33-30 and 32-21 victories in the following two sets.

However, the RPC team hit back, and took the final set 35-33 to take the contest to a shoot-off.

They certainly proved adept at delivering when it mattered most in shoot-offs, having also secured a 5-4 semi-final victory against China’s Wu Chunyan and Zhao Lixue with a nine and perfect 10 with their final two arrows.

Sidorenko and Smirnov earlier secured 6-2 wins against the United States’ Emma Rise Ravish and Eric Bennett in the round of 16 and South Korea’s Jo Jang Moon and Kim Min Su in the quarter-finals.

The 33-year-old Sidorenko had also competed in the women’s individual recurve competition at Tokyo 2020, progressing through the ranking round by finishing fifth on a score of 605.

However, she lost a shoot-off to Britain’s Hazel Chaisty in her first elimination match after both players had each earned five set points.

Sidorenko and Chaisty both scored nine in the shoot-off, but Chaisty's arrow was closer to the centre of the target.

The RPC archer had earlier in her career won three team recurve silver medals at the World Archery Para Championships - two in the women’s team events at Donaueschingen in Germany in 2015 and the Chinese capital Beijing in 2017, and one in the mixed team in the first of those championships.

She has spinal cord injuries from a traffic accident.

Smirnov is 25, and reached the quarter-finals of the men’s individual recurve at Tokyo 2020, finishing third with 632 points in the ranking round and comfortably beating Bhutan’s Pema Rigsel 6-2 and Slovakia’s David Ivan 6-0 in the first two knockout rounds before he narrowly lost 6-4 to South Korea’s Kim.

At the 2017 World Championships in Beijing, Smirnov contributed to a men’s recurve team gold.

He lost his left leg after falling under a truck at the age of 10.

The team’s success was the RPC’s 36th gold medal of Tokyo 2020.