Paris 2024 Olympics shooting: Manu Bhaker storms into pistol final, Indian rifle mixed teams miss cut for medal matches

Indian shooter Manu Bhaker stormed into the final of the women’s 10m air pistol event at the Paris 2024 Olympics after finishing third in the qualifying round on Saturday.

The top eight shooters from the men’s and the women’s 10m air pistol qualifying events made it to the final scheduled for Sunday at the National Shooting Center in Châteauroux.

Manu Bhaker became the first Indian woman to reach an Olympic shooting final in an individual event in 20 years, since Suma Shirur's entry in the 10m air rifle final at Athens 2004. Manu also became the first Indian woman to qualify for the 10m air pistol women's final at the Olympics.

Hungary’s Veronika Major (582-22X) topped the qualifying round, followed by Republic of Korea’s Oh Ye Jin (582-20X) and Manu Bhaker (580-27X). Rhythm Sangwan finished 15th (573-14x).

In the men’s 10m air pistol, Sarabjot Singh (577-16X) finished ninth while Arjun Singh Cheema finished 18th with 574-17X. Neither made the final.

Earlier in the day, both of India’s 10m air rifle mixed teams - Sandeep Singh/Elavenil Valarivan and Arjun Babuta/Ramita Jindal - also failed to make the cut for the medal matches in the shooting event.

Needing to place in the top four in the qualifying round to make any of the two medal matches, Arjun Babuta/Ramita Jindal narrowly lost out after finishing sixth with a score of 628.7. Sandeep Singh/Elavenil Valarivan came in 12th with 626.3.

The People’s Republic of China’s Huang Yuting and Sheng Lihao, the reigning world champions in the event, topped the qualifiers with a score of 632.2.

Arjun Babuta and Ramita Jindal missed the cut-off by just a single point, largely owing to an under-par first series, which saw them tally 208.7. Though they recovered to shoot 210.6 and 209.4 in their final two blocks, it wasn’t enough to break into the top four.

It was largely the same story for Sandeep Singh and Elavenil Valarivan as well, who raked in a disappointing 207.5 in their opening series before trying to recover with 210.0 and 208.8 in the next two series.

All four Indian rifle shooters - Sandeep Singh, Elavenil Valarivan, Arjun Babuta and Ramita Jindal - will be in action in their individual events later this week.