Indian shooting breathed a sigh of relief as ace pistol shooter Manu Bhaker finished third in the women’s 10m air pistol qualification to book her berth for the final of the event at the 2024 Paris Olympics on Saturday.
In a tough field with world record holder Jiang Ranxin, Hungarian shooter Veronika Major, and Korean shooter Jin Ye Oh, Manu scored 580 points with 27 inner 10s to book her berth in the final.
The top eight shooters from the qualification go to the final.
#Shooting | Manu Bhaker storms into the final!
Her path to redemption has begun as she shot consistently in the qualification to finish 3⃣rd. ✨👌
She had finished 1⃣2⃣th in the same event at Tokyo missing out the final.
Rhythm Sangwan on the other hand, finished 1⃣5⃣th and… pic.twitter.com/syKSwcLded
— The Bridge (@the_bridge_in) July 27, 2024
Starting with a brilliant round of 97, Manu continued her good run and scored 97 and 98 in the second and third rounds respectively. She dropped in rankings with four 9s in the fourth series but came back strongly to finish in third place.
Manu will feature in the final of the event tomorrow and can bring the first medal for the country.
Another Indian shooter in the event, Rhythm Sangwan finished a disappointing 15th with a score of 573.
Sarabjot suffers heartbreak in 10m air pistol
In the men’s 10m air pistol, Munich World Cup winner Sarabjot Singh lost out on the final qualification despite finishing eighth with Robin Walter of Germany.
Both the shooters scored 577 but Sarabjot lost because of shooting one less inner 10 than Robin.
The men’s 10m air pistol event continues to a poor for the Indian shooters with Saurabh Chaudhary faltering in 2020 Tokyo and Jitu Rai messing up in the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Another Indian shooter in the event, Arjun Singh Cheema finished 18th with a score of 574.
The shooter from Punjab started well and was in the top five for the first three rounds but he shot a 7 in the fourth series and never made a comeback to the top.
10m air rifle mixed team comes close to final qualification
Indian mixed teams in the 10m air rifle had a disappointing day with Ramita Jindal and Arjun Babuta finishing sixth in the qualification and Sandeep Singh and Elavenil Valarivan finishing 12th.
It was a close call for Ramita and Arjun as they were in the position to qualify for the medal matches till the last series but a couple of poor shots from Arjun Babuta resulted in the team falling to sixth place.
India will have five shooters in action tomorrow as Manu will feature in the 10m air pistol final, Ramita Jindal and Elavenil Valarivan in the women’s 10m air rifle qualification round, and Arjun Babuta and Sandeep Singh will be in action in the men’s 10m air rifle qualification round/