PARIS: The Indian shooting pair of Maheshwari Chauhan and Anantjeet Singh Naruka missed a bronze medal in the skeet mixed team competition at the ongoing Paris Olympics by the barest of margins as they lost to China by just one point on Monday.
Maheshwari and Anant Jeet lost to China’s Jiang Yiting and Lyu Jianlin by 43-44, as per Olympics.com. Earlier during the match, Chinese shooters missed three hits in a row to bring India into the game, but the latter could not capitalise.
With the scores level, a total of 47 out of 48 last shots were successful, except for one miss by Maheshwari, which resulted in China winning the bronze medal by the barest of margins.
The Indian pair scored 146/150 in the qualification round, with Maheshwari delivering an impressive performance by shooting a perfect 50/50 in her final two rounds. Naruka recorded scores of 25, 23, and 24 across the three rounds, according to Olympics.com. They finished 4th in qualification.
India have secured three medals in shooting, with all the Paris 2024 medals coming in shooting and all three are bronze.
Manu Bhaker opened the nation’s account with a bronze medal in the women’s 10m air pistol event, becoming India’s first-ever woman shooter to win an Olympic medal in the event.
After that, Sarabjot Singh and Manu won the bronze medal in the 10 m air pistol (mixed team) event, which was India’s first-ever medal in team shooting.
On Thursday, Swapnil Kusale won the bronze medal in the men’s 50 m rifle 3P event at the Paris Olympics. Kusale became the first Indian shooter to win a medal in the men’s 50 m rifle 3P event.
Following Kusale’s historic bronze medal win in the ongoing Paris Olympics, the Indian shooting contingent officially delivered its best-ever performance in Olympics history.
Before this, India’s best performance in shooting came at the 2012 London Olympics, with Vijay Kumar getting a silver in the men’s 25 m rapid-fire pistol event and Gagan Narang getting a bronze in the men’s 10 m air rifle event.
India’s first-ever shooting medal was earned by Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore in the men’s double trap shooting when he secured a silver at the 2004 Athens Olympics. It was followed by Abhinav Bindra’s historic gold medal in men’s 10 m air rifle at the Beijing Olympics, which was also the country’s first-ever individual gold medal in any sport. (ANI)