Manu Bhaker on Saturday, became the only Indian sport shooter to reach the final of her respective event at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

The 22-year-old from Haryana, competing in her second Olympic Games, came up with a solid performance, scoring 580 to finish third in the women’s 10m air pistol qualification round.

Bhaker started the contest well, scoring 97 in the first two series, followed by a solid 98 in the third. She dropped the pace a bit in the remaining three rounds in which she scored 96 points each – the fifth series also saw her shoot an 8. But her strong start had put her in a good place for her to go on and earn the top 8 spot.

Her compatriot Rhythm Sangwan however, finished in 15th place with a score of 573 over the 60 shots.

Sangwan had a strong start as well, shooting 97 in her first series. However, she faltered in the second series in which she scored 92 – with one shot of 8 and six 9s. She did try to recover with scores of 97, 96, 95 and 96, but was unable to climb back into final round contention.

Manu Bhaker's scores from the women's 10m air pistol qualification round | Courtesy: Olympics.com

Narrow miss for Sarabjot Singh

Earlier in the day, Sarabjot Singh missed out on making it to the men’s 10m air pistol final by the narrowest of margins.

Singh had scored a total of 577 to take him to joint-eight place on the table with Germany’s Robin Walter. However, Walter had scored 17 inner-10 shots compared to Singh’s 16, giving the German the last remaining spot in the final.

“I did well, but it was just a bad day,” Singh said to Jio Cinema after the qualification event. “I’m not sure what happened. This is my first Olympics and I got to learn a lot. There is still a lot missing in terms of the technique, which is something I have to improve on.”

In the fourth series of his event, Singh had hit a perfect score of 100, but let the momentum slip when he scored 93 in the fifth round – including a shot of 8.

Meanwhile, Arjun Cheema, competing in the same event, finished 18th with a score of 574.

Missed medal opportunity

In the first medal event of the Paris Olympics, India had fielded two teams in the 10m air rifle mixed event. Both teams however, failed to reach the medal matches.

Elavenil Valarivan and Sandeep Singh finished 12th in the 28-team competition where only the top 4 make it to the medal matches. The duo scored a total of 626.3 (312.6 from Valarivan and 313.7 from Sandeep Singh).

The other Indian team of Ramita Jindal and Arjun Babuta however did much better but missed out on a medal round spot by one point.

The duo finished in sixth place, with a score of 628.7, behind Norway’s score of 629.6 and Germany’s 629.7 (which proved to be the cutoff for the medal rounds).

Jindal scored 314.5 while Babuta scored 314.2.

ALSO READ: Manu Bhaker and Co hope to bury Tokyo ghosts in Paris

With 21 members in the team, this is the largest shooting contingent the Indians have ever sent to an edition of the Olympics.

The teams from Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 had failed to win a medal. There are expectations for the drought to end from the Class of 2024.