Indian shooters endured yet another forgettable outing at the Tokyo Olympics here on Tuesday as they crashed out in the qualifying stages of the mixed team events in both pistol and rifle.
Considered the team’s best bet for a podium finish, the duo of Saurabh Chaudhary and Manu Bhaker caved in under pressure and failed to qualify for the final of the 10m air pistol mixed team event. Thy finished seventh in Qualification 2 after topping the first phase with 582 at the Asaka Range. Both the 19-year-old shooters lost the plot completely when the top eight teams battled it out in the second phase,
The other Indian team in the event, Abhishek Verma and Yashaswini Singh Deswal failed to clear Qualification 1 and finished in 17th place, having totalled 564 across six series (three each for one member).
The team of Chaudhary and Bhaker totalled 380 across two series each in the second phase of the qualification.
Things took a dramatic turn in the second phase as the Indians got off to a horrid start with Bhaker shooting a poor 92 in her first series to go with a 94 in the second.
By his standards, Chaudhary was not great either in the first series as he shot 96, but he came back strongly to record 98 in his second series.
But it was always going to be an improbable task for the Indians after four 8s by Bhaker across the two series.
Chaudhary and Bhaker were languishing at the bottom of the table after the first series.
While the top eight teams make the Qualification 2, the top four pairs in the second phase qualify for the medal rounds.
Earlier, Chaudhary recorded an excellent 296, including a perfect 100, across the three series of 10 shots each while Bhaker managed 286, in the first phase.
Later in the day, both the Indian pairs participating in the 10m air rifle mixed team event crashed out in the first qualifications stage, missing out on yet another final after an outing that left a lot to be desired.
The duo of Elavenil Valarivan and Divyansh Singh Panwar finished 12th with a total of 626.5 across three series each, while Anjum Moudgil and Deepak Kumar ended 18th out of 29 pairs with an aggregate score of 623.8 at the Asaka Range.
It wasn’t an ideal start for the more fancied Elavenil and Divyansh, while Anjum and Deepak found themselves languishing at the bottom of the pile. They could not recover well enough to threaten the ones at the top of the table from thereon.