Both Indian shooters failed to hit the high 10s throughout the qualification round and finished outside the top-30 shooters.
Advertisement
It was a disappointing start for the Indian shooters at the Rio Olympics as top medal prospect Jitu Rai finishing a lowly eighth in the men’s 10m Air Pistol final, while Apurvi Chandela and Ayonika Paul crashed out in the qualification round of their respective events.
The second day of shooting action will see the 10m Air Pistol event, where shooters shoot from a distance of 10m with the bulls-eye of the target located at a height of 1.4 metres from the ground.
Bhokanal, who had qualified for the Games with a silver medal finish in the Asia-Oceania qualifier, was in second place for the first 500 metres of the race but started to lag behind once the Mexican in lane 2 picked up the pace around the 700 metres mark.
Even as there was some rejoicing in the Indian camp, there were setbacks from the shooting range with the elimination of the two women shooters. Apurvi Chandela finished 34th with a score of 411.7 (104.2, 102.7, 103.3, 101.4), while Ayonika Paul ended up at 47th with a score of 403 (102, 104.5, 102.5, 94).
In the same event, China’s Du Li created a new Olympic record with a score of 420.7 to top the standings.
Advertisement
Both Apurvi and Ayonika have had some creditable worldwide performances, finishing with a gold and silver respectively at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014. The 32-year-old clinched the gold in the at the inaugural Bangkok World Cup earlier this year and will look to make it a hat-trick of gold on Sunday in Brazil.
