Manu Bhaker suffered gun malfunction at Tokyo, at Paris Olympics she is in the 10m air pistol final

India’s Day 1 at the Olympics began with the disappointment that there would be no repeat of Mirabai Chanu’s Tokyo Games opening day heroics at the Paris Olympics after the 10m Air Rifle mixed team duos of Ramita Jindal-Arjun Babuta and Sandeep Singh-Elavenil Valarivan failed to make it to the medal rounds of their event. They were then followed by the 10m Air Pistol Men’s event where both Indian shooters failed to qualify for the final.

Ramita and Arjun came agonisingly close by finishing sixth among 28 shooting teams in their event, A shocked Sarabjot Singh finished ninth – one spot out of the final cutoff – one that he missed after scores between him, Robin Walter and Ismail Keles were all locked at 577 but his inner 10s were one fewer than the German’s. An agonising close to the day for Ramita-Arjun and even more so for Sarabjot. Arjun Singh Cheema started off brightly but tapered off in his fourth and fifth series’ with a 94 and 93. A 97 in the sixth, didn’t bring him back to the fold and Cheema ended on 18th among 33 shooters.

While World Championships produce the highest of high scores, the Olympics usually give way to slightly reduced points – the pressure is at its greatest and world-class levels usually get shredded. Yesterday at the Paris Games’ first shooting medal on the line, almost all teams faded at some point or the other bar the Chinese duo of Huang Yuting and Sheng Lihao, who finished with a score of 632.2.

India’s Ramita Jindal (left) and Sandeep Singh compete in the 10m air rifle mixed team qualification rounds at Paris Olympics. (PHOTOS: AP)

The Indian shooting contingent has come into the Paris Olympics on the back of eight years of no shooting medals across two different Olympics. This contingent has had to go through the pressure of domestic trials held over a month with quota winners getting no love for their past performances and only this one-month test mattering.

It led to a 10M Air Rifle team that looks different on paper to what many considered to be India’s top rifle shooters. If selectors had their way, Rudrankksh Patil, Divyansh Singh Panwar, Mehuli Ghosh and Tilottama Sen would have been the rifle team for the individual and mixed events. Instead, the trials threw its own curveball and India landed on Ramita-Arjun and Sandeep-Elavenil. Out of those four, only Elavenil had the experience of having been to a prior Olympics before.

On Saturday, in an event where both shooters need to come firing and even 1-2 poor shots can cost, Ramita had 10 shots of 10.3 or lower and Arjun had 11 shots of 10.3 or lower. To put it into context, the Chinese qualification toppers had a combined 11 shots of 10.3 or under – negating bad shots is the name of the game and while the Indians were good, the four teams in front of them simply out-qualified them by being just that bit more consistent.

Arjun in particular was the one Indian shooter who was routinely hitting scores around 106 at the trials and his second series of 10 shots at Chateauroux saw him
hit an incredible 106.2. But the Chandigarh shooter’s first series of 104.1 and last series of 103.9 was simply not good enough to keep up with the Top 4 teams.

Ramita too, struggled with the first couple of series’ – hitting a 104.6 and a 104.4 – fairly decent scores everywhere except maybe the Olympics.

India’s other team at the 10m Air Rifle mixed-team event of Sandeep Singh and Elavenil Valarivan finished 12th with a score of 626.3. All four shooters will be attempting to make the finals of the individual event – and unlike this event where 30 shots per shooter means a really fine margin can separate the medal contenders from the rest, the individual qualification offers at least a 60-shot event with each shooter having their fate in their own hands.