Swapnil Kusale clinched India’s third medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics, bagging the bronze in men’s 50m rifle 3 positions event at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre on Thursday.
Kusale, 28, shot a total of 451.4 in the final to finish third behind China’s Liu Yukun and Ukraine’s Serhiy Kulish. He shot a total of 153.3 in the kneeling position, 156.8 in prone, and 101.5 in ten standing shots before the one-shot elimination round began.
Kusale started off slowly in the final and was placed joint sixth after the first series of five shots in the kneeling position. He remained sixth at the end of three kneeling series, but had reduced the gap with the opponent in fifth place to just 0.2 points.
He started off with an impressive 52.7 in the first prone series, thereby climbing to fifth. By the end of the 15 shots in the prone position he was up to fourth.
Kusale then soared to third position by the end of the standing series with impressive scores of 51.1 and 50.4 in the two series.
Even as the single shot elimination round began, the Indian remained unfazed as he went on to secure the bronze medal.
Kusale, a ticket collector with the railways, thus became the first Indian ever to medal in the 50m rifle 3 positions event at the Olympics.
The bronze at Chateauroux holds a special significance for Kusale, who had developed a tendency to finish fourth over the last couple of years. He had finished fourth at the 2022 ISSF World Championships in Cairo, which helped him earn the Olympic quota, and had later followed it up with a fourth place finish at the delayed Asian Games in Hangzhou last year.
Kusale had earlier finished seventh in the qualification round on Wednesday with a score of 590, level with two Czech Republic shooters. He only made it to the final by the virtue of shooting more inner 10s. The other Indian in contention, Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar had finished 11th with a score of 589.
Samra, Moudgil bow out
India will not be able to replicate Kusale’s feat in the women’s event as Sift Kaur Samra and Anjum Moudgil both failed to qualify for the women’s 50m Rifle 3 positions final.
In a qualification round where the top eight progressed to the final, Moudgil finished in 18th place with an overall score of 584-26x while Samra, the world record holder, bowed out of the competiton after finishing in 31st place with a score of 575-22x.
Moudgil scored 195 in kneeling position, along with 194 in both the prone and standing positions. Samra was solid in the kneeling and prone positions with scores of 195 and 193 respectively, but faltered in the standing position with a score of 187.
