Ramita Jindal made the women's 10m air final at Paris 2024, becoming the first Indian female shooter in a rifle final at the Olympics after 20 years. Ramita (20), making her Olympics debut, shot a 631.5 in a steady qualification round to finish fifth.
Steady, not slow, is a modified adage that describes Ramita well. Her steady shooting it's what it takes to shine in India's very tough and competitive women's 10m air rifle field.
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She started qualifying in Chartreux with a maximum of 10.9 on the second shot of the morning but her first series was 104.3. Her second series picked up with a 106.0 and the third was a middling 104.9.
At the halfway mark, she was in a spot of bother with a couple of 10.2 and 10.3 shots which saw her fall down the chart to 10th.
Meanwhile her compatriot Elavenil Valarivan was going strong, staying in the top 8 and even leading at one point, raising hopes of a final appearance in her second Olympics.
But shooting is a game of fine margins and one bad shot from her - a 9.8 on her penultimate shot - took her out of the race.
Ramita, meanwhile, shot 105.3, 105.3, 105.7 in the last three series. Nothing too flashy but enough to become the first Indian woman in a rifle shooting final since Suma Shirur - India's current rifle coach sitting behind them at the Olympics - at Athens 2004.
She needed to be calm for the final shots, and took her time, almost five shots behind Elavenil's exit. She had already experienced failure a day before, when she and Arjun Babuta missed the mixed team medal matches by a small margin. This was her last chance in Paris,
Indian women shooters in an Olympic final:
Beijing 2008: 0
London 2012: 0
Rio 2016: 0
Tokyo 2020: 0Paris 2024: 2#Olympics | #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/USdilJqZ4F
- ESPN India (@ESPNIndia) July 28, 2024
But then, Ramita knows a thing or two about being calm in extreme pressure, it's how she reached the Paris Olympics in the first place.
Circle back to two months prior and the much-talked about India's Olympic Selection Trials. Burnt by back-to-back failures, the Indian shooting federation introduced a rigorous four-stage selection trials which pitted the country's top 5 shooters in an intense four matches.
Ahead of the final trial, Ramita was placed fourth, despite her doing well in the first leg, in a loaded field of Elavenil, Mehuli Ghosh, Nancy and Tilltotama Sen. Only the top two would make the Olympic team.
Ramita responded with a sensational score 636.4, which was 0.1 more than the existing world record set by China's Han Jiayu at the Baku World Cup earlier that month. It was enough to send her to Paris.
In the final on Monday, she will take on a tough field with Ban Hyojin who shot an Olympic record in qualification, previous world record holder Jeanette Hegg Duestad, China's Asian Games champion Huang Yuting who already has a gold in Paris.
Ramita has the experience of already being in a similar final, last year at the Asian Games where she won bronze behind two Chinese shooters in China. On her senior major multi-sport competition, beating compatriot and veteran Mehuli Ghosh in a shoot-off.
An Olympic final will be an unheard kind of pressure. But Ramita, with a little help from Shirur who has been there, can channel this innate steadiness and script history for Indian shooting. Already, Paris is better than Tokyo with two Indians making the final and it can only get better from here.