India had a bit of a bittersweet experience in the qualification round of the men’s 10m air rifle event held at the National Shooting Range in Rio. Abhinav Bindra made sure he was not going to bow out of his last Olympic Games at the first hurdle, and qualified for the final round of the event with a 7th ranked finish in the qualification round – scoring a tally of 625.7 points. However, the bad news for the nation is that fellow shooter Gagan Narang could not capitalize on his great start and was eliminated at the 23rd spot with a tally of 621.7 points.
Bindra used his experience as he started the qualification round by taking his time to fire. The 2008 Beijing gold medalist shot 104.3 points in his first series which saw him well placed at the 10th spot. However, he could not pull up his socks and scored just 104.4 points in his second series which saw him drop one place to 11th. The Indian rose in the rankings to 3rd as he shot a magnificent 105.9 points in his third series.
His fourth series saw a dip in concentration for the shooter where he obtained 103.8 points, falling to the 5th spot in the rankings. His decline continued as he could only score 102.1 points in his fifth series– taking him to 12th spot. However, the experienced shooter put up a fight to score a 105.2 points in his sixth series – finishing with a tally of 625.7 points at the 7th position.
On the other hand, Gagan Narang was participating in the first of his three events at Rio 2016, and seemed determined to come racing out of the blocks. The 33-year-old rifle shooter started off his qualification round with 105.3 points in his first series leading the pack as the number one ranked shooter, but could only manage 104.5 points in his second. Narang had a drastic fall as he slipped from the 3rd spot to the 19th as he could only manage 102.1 points in his third series.
The shooter noticed his dip in form as he lagged in the early 20s in the rankings. He took his time to fire the fourth series where he scored 103.4 points to get to the 16th spot. But disaster followed as the shooter dropped to the 30th spot after his fifth series where he scored only 101.6 points. Narang had a Herculean task ahead of him in the last series and 104.8 points were not enough to get him to the final round.
The final round of the event will take place later in the evening at 8:30 pm IST. Here is the complete list of shooters who have qualified for the final round:
- Niccolo Campriani (Italy) – 630.2 points
- Vladimir MASLENNIKOV (Russia) – 629 points
- Petar GORSA (Croatia) – 628 points
- Serhiy KULISH (Ukraine) – 627 points
- Oleh TSARKOV (Ukraine) – 626.2 points
- Peter SIDI (Hungary) – 625.9 points
- Abhinav BINDRA (India) –625.7 points
- Illia CHARHEIKA (Bulgaria) – 625.5 points
