The few Indian coaches and officials gathered inside the slightly stuffy 10m range of the Chateauroux Shooting Centre finally got a reason to make some noise and tune up a few claps on the first day of competitions at the Paris Olympics.
“C’mon, Manu. Well done,” shouted those few wearing blue.
Half done it may be, yet the job was fairly well done. On a day India’s 10m air rifle mixed team fell short of earning a shot at a first medal for the country in shooting’s opener, Manu Bhaker stepped up to do so in the final event. The 22-year-old finished third in the women’s 10m air pistol qualification round with a solid score of 580 to book her place in the eight-women final that will take place on Sunday.
Manu, a rare constant face from the 2021 Tokyo Games flop to the 2024 Paris Games hope of Indian shooting, made a confident start to her campaign in which she will compete across three events. Her scores, save a few odd moments of dip to go with hits of high 10s, were fairly consistent throughout the 60-shot qualification round.
Her little boost right at the end of day’s play in Chateauroux would go some way in calming the nerves of the country’s 21-strong shooting contingent. Three years ago at the Tokyo Olympics, just one Indian shooter entered the final across the 10 events which saw faces of disappointment day after day. Here on Day One, Manu wore a smile, her personal coach Jaspal Rana wept tears and India’s foreign pistol national coach Munkhbayar Dorjsuren was satisfied. “Good, confident start for Manu,” she said.
{{/usCountry}}Her little boost right at the end of day’s play in Chateauroux would go some way in calming the nerves of the country’s 21-strong shooting contingent. Three years ago at the Tokyo Olympics, just one Indian shooter entered the final across the 10 events which saw faces of disappointment day after day. Here on Day One, Manu wore a smile, her personal coach Jaspal Rana wept tears and India’s foreign pistol national coach Munkhbayar Dorjsuren was satisfied. “Good, confident start for Manu,” she said.
{{/usCountry}}That wasn’t quite the case to kick things off on Saturday. India fielded two 10m air rifle mixed teams for the qualification from which the top four entered medal rounds. Arjun Babuta and Ramita Jindal came a close sixth, shooting a combined 628.7, while the other pair of Sandeep Singh and Elavenil Valarivan were 12th. The near-miss feel carried on to the 10m air pistol men’s qualification too.
Olympic debutant Sarabjot Singh missed out on the eight-man final by the barest of margins, striking one ‘X’ (inner 10) fewer than German Robin Walter (17) that made the difference with their scores tied at 577. An ‘X’ stood between a ninth-place finish and a final, of chasing glory and cutting a frustrated figure.
Around 300 kilometres away in Paris which was just about waking up to the starry, stunning late climax of the opening ceremony, rower Balraj Panwar got down to business. The lone Indian rower was fourth in his men’s single sculls heats, a finish that will give him another chance to qualify for the quarter-finals through the repechage round on Sunday.
Preliminary group stages matches in badminton and table tennis pretty much went as per script. Men’s doubles pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, the world No. 3 and a big medal hope, enjoyed a routine straight-game victory over Frenchmen Lucas Corvee and Ronan Labar, and so did singles player Lakshya Sen against Kevin Cordon.
In the men’s hockey competition, India were made to sweat by NZ before eventually coming out 3-2 winners’ courtesy a goal from a penalty stroke by skipper Harmanpreet Singh. It wasn’t the kind of start India would have wanted but for now, the win matters more than how they got it.
Damp weather in Paris continued to cause disruption, with a few events including tennis featuring India’s doubles pair of Rohan Bopanna and Sriram Balaji, being pushed back.