Shooters Manu Bhaker and Yashaswini Singh Deswal failed to make the final of the women's 10m air pistol event at the Tokyo Olympics on Sunday. Bhaker finished 12th with a total of 575, while Deswal ended up 13th with a total of 574. The qualification was topped by China's Jiang Ranxin, who shot a Qualification Olympic Record of 587 to make the final.
Bhaker had a great start to her qualification, shooting 98 - including eight 10s - to finish third at the end of the first series. Deswal, on the other hand, had a much slower start as several 9s and an 8, for a total of 94, had her in 34th place by the end of her first series.
Bhaker had a technical snag during the second series and lost more than five minutes after making an impressive start in her maiden Olympic appearance.
Her father Ramkishan Bhaker, as well as a National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) official, said that the electronic trigger of Manu's pistol had "suffered a circuit malfunction" in the middle of the second series of the qualification.
In the second series, Bhaker slipped from third to sixth as she shot five 9s and five 10s for a total of 95, while Deswal scored 98 this time to claw her way back up to 12th place. Bhaker had the glitch after the sixth shot of her second series.
Deswal, the World No. 1, had a slightly poor third series as she shot 94 again to drop into 19th place. Bhaker, the World No. 2, also had a poor series as the boost of five 10s was undone by an 8 and four 9s, her total of 94 dropping her into 17th place.
Deswal improved on her performance in the fourth series, shooting seven 10s and three 9s for 97, while Bhaker shot five 10s and five 9s for a score of 95 again. At that point, both Indian shooters' nearly identical scores kept them out of the top eight and close to each other in the overall qualification list.
In the fifth series, Bhaker replicated her efficiency of the first one, shooting eight 10s and two 9s for a total of 98, while Deswal shot two more 9s in comparison to tally 96.
In the sixth and final series, Bhaker looked like she might have just squeezed into the last eight, but three 9s and an 8 on her final shot of qualification proved costly. Had she shot a 10 on that last shot, Bhaker would've equalled the tally, including the number of inner 10s (denoted by X), of the last two shooters to make the eight-person final. Deswal, meanwhile, shot a 95 in her final series.
Bhaker is also in contention in the 25m pistol event and the 10m air pistol mixed team event with Saurabh Chaudhary, who finished 7th in the men's 10m air pistol final on Saturday after topping the qualification.
Men's 10m air rifle
India's Deepak Kumar and Divyansh Singh Panwar finished a lowly 26th and 32nd, respectively, in the men's 10m air rifle event after failing to recover from a poor start in the qualifications.
Deepak aggregated 624.7, while Divyansh shot 622.8 over six series and could not make the final.
While Deepak did shoot a 105.2 and 105.3 in the fourth and sixth series respectively, his low scores in the first three series cost him a spot in the final.
Deepak's sequence of scores read 102.9 103.8 103.7 105.2 103.8 and 105.3, while Divyansh had scores of 102.7 103.7 103.6 104.6 104.6 and 103.6 in the six series' of qualification.
China's Yang Haoran topped the qualification round with an Olympic qualification record score of 632.7.
The previous record (630.2) was held by Italy's Niccolo Campriani.