Tokyo Olympics: India look to Manu, Divyansh, Yashaswini for solace after disappointing start

The Indian shooting team will hope for a better outing in the Tokyo Olympics here on Sunday, a day after a disappointing start to its campaign.

The onus will be on Manu Bhaker, Yashaswini Singh Deswal in women’s 10m air pistol, and the men’s 10m air rifle duo of Divyansh Singh Panwar and Deepak Kumar, to ensure that the country achieves success on the second day of competition.

The Indian shooting team will make four more attempts at opening its medal count at the Games.

In the sport’s first competition day, Indian shooters endured multiple heartbreaks with the biggest disappointment being Saurabh Chaudhary’s failure to win a medal after topping the qualifications.

While Chaudhary finished seventh in the finals of men’s 10m air pistol, his roommate Abhishek Verma settled for 17th position in the qualifications.

In the women’s 10m air rifle, both Elavenil Valarivan and Apurvi Chandela could not clear the qualifying hurdle, settling for the 16th and 36th place respectively.

Up next, Manu and Yashaswini will line up in the women’s 10m air pistol qualifiers in the morning session, while in the afternoon, Deepak and Divyansh will compete in the men’s 10m air rifle event.

The women will again be looking to break the 580 mark at the bare minimum, to strengthen their claims for a finals spot. The top eight will qualify from the 53-woman field after 60 shots are fired in 75 minutes.

The men’s 10m air rifle competition has attracted 47 participants and will also have a 60-shot qualification round, but with decimal scoring in place, the comfort score is around 630 to ensure a finals berth.

Yashaswini and Manu go into the competition as world number one and two, respectively, while Divyansh is world number two in men’s 10m air rifle, even as his senior compatriot, Deepak Kumar, ranks 11th currently.

Action will also begin for the shotgun disciplines as India’s Mairaj Ahmad Khan and Angad Vir Singh Bajwa attempt to qualify for the medal rounds of the men’s skeet competition.

Sunday will be day one of qualifying in men’s skeet which will have three of the five 25-shot rounds being played through the day.

The last two rounds, before the top six make it to the 60-shot final, will be held on Monday.

Mairaj, into his second Olympic Games and debutant Angad, have been training in Italy in the build-up to the Games. It is a compact but strong Olympic field of 30 and the two will have their task cut out to make it to the medal round.

In the skeet event, clay targets are thrown in a particular order for each of the eight shooting stations set on a semi-circular field from two strategically placed throwing machines — ‘High House’ and ‘Low House’.

A total of 25 such targets are thrown in one series.

In world-class events such as the Olympics, a score of 123 or 124 out of 125 in qualifying often leads to a shoot-off to separate the top six.

Mairaj has a best of 122 and Angad 121 and will have to shoot extraordinarily to have a decent shot at a medal.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.