The Indian medal juggernaut continued in shooting as Rubina Francis clinched the bronze medal in the women’s 10m air pistol SH1 category to make it four medals in shooting on Saturday.
Rubina shot 211.1 in the eight-shooter final to clinch the bronze while Sareh Javanmardi of Iran and Aysel Ozgan of Turkey clinched the gold and silver medals respectively.
Starting on a high note with a 10.7 shot, Rubina was consistently in the third position in the final and never let the bronze medal slip out of her sight.
With a total of 97.6, she was ranked third after the first two series of five shots each.
She shot poorly in the first elimination round with scores of 8.9 and 9.3 but stayed in third position. Another poor round with scores of 8.7 and 9.8 meant that Rubina fell to fourth position after four rounds.
But she came back with a good shot of 10.4 in the next round while her closest competitor shot 7.5 to give her an advantage.
In her penultimate round, Rubina moved to second position overtaking Aysel but with a poor shot of 9.2 and then 8.9, she fell to third place clinching India’s second bronze in shooting.
Earlier in the day, Rubina made an amazing comeback in the qualification round to book her berth for the final.
Trailing below the top eight shooters throughout the qualification round, Rubina picked up the speed in the end and sneaked to seventh place.
Swaroop disappoints in 10m air rifle
In the men’s 10m air rifle standing (SH1) event, Swaroop, the 38-year-old marksman competing in his second Paralympics, finished a dismal 14th in the qualification round to miss the final by quite a distance.
Unhalkar, who had missed the bronze medal by a whisker at the Tokyo Paralympics three years ago, was far from impressive in an 18-shooter field on Saturday, aggregating 613.4 points.
India has won four medals in Shooting with one gold, one silver and two bronze medals.