TOKYO, July 25: The fancied Indian shooting team drew a blank for the second day running in the Tokyo Olympics here, with a major weapon malfunction leading to a heartbreaking exit for the young Manu Bhaker in the women’s 10 air pistol event.
Appearing in her maiden Olympics, the 19-year-old Manu finished a creditable 12th, despite losing nearly 20 minutes during the qualifications after the cocking lever in her pistol broke down, forcing her to go to a designated area for getting it fixed. Manu shot 575, while the cut-off was 577.
Yashaswini Singh Deswal, the other first-timer at the Games, recovered from a subdued start to end 13th, with a total score of 574.
In the men’s 10 air rifle event, both the experienced Deepak Kumar and the teenaged Divyansh Singh Panwar finished a lowly 26th and 32nd respectively. Deepak aggregated 624.7 while Divyansh shot 622.8 over the six series, scores which were never going to be enough to make the final.
India’s Angad Vir Singh Bajwa missed two targets out of 75 to be placed 11th on count back at the end of the third round in men’s skeet qualifications. He looks to be in search of a top-six finals spot. Angad had scores of 25, 24, 24 in the first three series and will come back on Monday to shoot the final two series.
Compatriot Mairaj Ahmad Khan shot 71 and was placed 25th out of the 30 shooters in fray.
Taken together, the first two days’ performance, or, the lack of it, is certainly going to raise a few eyebrows within the Indian shooting fraternity, including the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI), which has done its bit in preparing its athletes.
While the pistol shooters, especially the young Saurabh Chaudhary and Manu, put up a strong fight in their maiden appearances on a stage as grand as the Olympics, the scores registered by the ones in rifle events left a lot to be desired.
According to an insider in the NRAI, the federation is certainly feeling let down with the scores of the rifle shooters – Deepak, Divyansh and Apurvi Chandela and Elavenil Valarivan in the women’s 10m qualifications on Saturday.
Earlier in the day, the 19-year-old Manu, ranked number two in the world, was badly affected by a malfunction involving her pistol after an impressive start saw her take one of the places in the top eight.
When the technical snag – the pistol’s cocking lever broke down – happened, she was left to shoot 44 shots in 55 minutes. And when she came back to the firing point after getting the issue sorted, Manu had to complete the remaining number of shots in 36 minutes, an improbable task at any level of competition.
After she had returned to the range, more agony awaited the 19-year-old as 4-5 minutes were lost in checking the repaired gun in the sighter (practice).
ROC’s (Russian Olympic Committee) Vitalina Batsarashkina won the gold medal with an Olympic record 240.3 in the final, Bulgaria’s Antoaneta Kostadinova bagged silver with 239.4 while Ranxin Jiang of China ended with the bronze after shooting 218.0. (PTI)
