Four Indian Mixed Shooting Teams Eye Medals in Tokyo Olympics.
Indian shooters are crossing their fingers for the youth of the team that will attempt to end the medal drought at the Tokyo Olympics in the 10-meter air pistol and air rifle mixed team events here on Tuesday. Tokyo Olympics | Full schedule | Sport News
On Monday, India’s Angad Vir Singh Bajwa finished 18th while compatriot Mairaj Ahmad Khan finished 25th in the men’s skeet event, missing the six-man final by some distance.
In the mixed team 10-meter air pistol event, the formidable pair of Saurabh Chaudhary and Manu Bhaker will imagine their chances after a great run in recent years, during which they dominated almost every major competition.
Abhishek Verma and Yashaswini Singh Deswal will be the other Indian team participating in the event.
Divyansh Singh Panwar and Elavenil Valarivan will represent India in the 10-meter mixed rifle team event with Deepak Kumar and Anjum Moudgil as the other team.
A total of 20 pairs will participate in the 10-meter air pistol qualifications with challengers from Russia, Iran, China, France and Serbia.
The 10-meter mixed rifle event will feature 29 pairs and the biggest challenge is expected to come from Hungary, Russia, the US, China and Germany.
In the first qualifying round of both events, there will be three series of 10 shots for each member of the team, while in the second, the members of the eight best pairs of the first round will make two series of 10 shots.
In both the pistol and rifle events, the team with the highest combined score of individual shots fired by each member of the commanding team scores two points with one point awarded for a tie. The first team to reach 16 points with a difference of two, wins.
Earlier in the day, 25-year-old Angad shot 120 in five series and Mairaj could only handle 117 at Asaka Range.
Placing a creditable 11th place overnight and with his sights set on a final spot at the end of the first three rounds, Angad missed his target three times on the second day of qualifying to withdraw from the contest without a fight.
His sequence of scores read 24, 25, 24, 23, 24.
On the other hand, Mairaj was unable to improve his position overnight and finished the competition with scores of 25, 24, 22, 23, 23 for a total of 117.
In clay pigeon ratings, each shooter pulls the trigger 125 times in five series and from eight firing stations arranged in a semicircle. The first six qualify for the final, where they shoot 60 targets.
Angad holds the world record in skeet at 60 out of 60, achieved at the Asian Shotgun Championship in Kuwait in 2018.
He had fired another 60/60 the next year, in New Delhi, to overtake Mairaj en route to defending his Nationals crown.
Angad missed two goals of 75 to move to 11th in the countdown at the end of the third round on Sunday.
Mairaj was 71 and placed 25th out of 30 shooters in the fray.
Vincent Hancock of the USA won his third Olympic gold with a score of 59 out of 60 in the men’s skeet final, with former Danish world champion Jesper Hansen winning silver and Kuwait’s Abdullah Alrashidi, 58, repeating his effort to win bronze since the 2016 Rio Games.
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