Shooting numbers: How Esha Singh pipped China’s Feng Sixuan and other stories

In the individual 25m pistol, Feng wracked up a 291 in precision, and a staggering 299 in Rapid (100, 100, 99) to top qualification at 590. Manu Bhaker holds the Junior World Record of 593.

Esha Singh who eventually picked gold, was 4th in qualification, behind 3 Chinese shooters for 581. The Hyderabadi’s series read 97, 98, 99 for Precision total of 294 (Feng 291) and Rapid 287 (Feng 299). In the Rankings (like semis), Esha had 11 Hits as against Feng’s 15, while they were slotted in two different groups. However, Esha notched 29 hits against Feng’s 25 in the Finals. Crucially, on the last 10 shots in the straight duel when they were poised at 22-21 to the Indian, Esha outscored Feng 7/10 hits to 4/10 pointing to a better clutch score.

Indians better than China in finals

In the men’s air rifle team Final on Sunday, the Chinese trio of Lihao Sheng, Buhan Song and Haoran Yang dropped below a score of 10.0, four times over their 39 shots, while the Indians had a solitary 9.9 in 39 shots. Arjun Babuta had two 10.9s including the last shot, Kiran Jadhav and Rudrankksh Patil had two 10.8s each pointing to better Inner Tens. China’s Lihao Sheng had one 10.9 and 10.8 each, though he started with 9.8 and 9.7. Buhan Song shot mid range, no High Tens. Haoran Yang had one 10.8.

At Clutch on Topmost Tens, India bt China 6-3.

Patil’s consistent qualification

Notable in Rudrankksh Patil’s qualification run, where he topped, during his gold medal in 10m air rifle, was that he did not drop even once below 105 in the six series. Both Italian Dennis Sollazzo and Chinese Lihao Sheng had one series where they went below 105. All the top 4 qualifiers – Patil, Sheng, Haoran and Iranian Nekounam had 2 series each of 106+. But the 105+ consistency gave Patil the 633.9 Q score.

Patil – better finisher in duel

In the Rankings (semis), Sollazzo had one 10.9, four 10.8s and four 10.7s; Patil had no 10.9, three 10.8s and four 10.7s while Sheng had one 10.9, four 10.8s and two 10.7s. The Indian could summon one each of 10.9, 10.8 and 10.7 in the gold medal duel, while the Italian had three 10.7s. Their finishing shots: Patil – 10.7 and 10.5. Sollazzo – 10.4 and 10.2.

Mehuli – needs more 105-series

Every qualifier in women’s air rifle had at least 3 scores of 105+ in their six series of Qualification. Mehuli Ghosh who narrowly missed out, finishing 10th, had 4 series under 105 – small margins costing much as she ended at 629.7, while cutoff was 630.0. Ghosh dipped below 10, into 9s twice in the 60 shot qualification (23rd shot of 9.8, 34th of 9.9). As did Yu Zhang who qualified 8th. Except the Chinese had 11 shots of 10.7, five of 10.8 and two of 10.9. Ghosh had seven of 10.7s, five of 10.8 and three of 10.9. More of those 10.7s & atleast three series of 105+ needed to crack finals.

Narwal’s lull start; horror third series

Shiva Narwal had a sensational finish to his qualification with seven straight 10s to log a sixth final series of 98. However in the Ranking elimination, he also had a horror run of seven shots under 10 that sent him out of quota contention.

Interestingly, the third 5-shot series finalists where Narwal got eliminated, was a dip for all the eight finalists for some reason. It is rare for the full pack to dip sub-10 in the same series multiple times like a husha-hoosha-ringa-roses.

Here’s the number of sub-10s 9-scores for each in the third series: Narwal – India (4 under-10s) , Bankin – Ukraine (4), Gulfam – Pakistan (3), Bowen – China (3), Lee – Korea (3), Korostylov – Ukraine (2), Liu – China (2), Zhang – China (2).