India shooter Ramita Jindal qualified for the final, while Elavenil Valarivan suffered another heartbreak in the women’s 10m air rifle event in the ongoing Paris Olympics on Sunday at the National Shooting Center.
Ramita finished in the fifth spot with a score of 631.5 and will compete in the final on Monday.
Valarivan wore Bib No. 1441 and fired her shots from lane 24, while Ramita donned 1436 and occupied lane number 37.
Ramita started the event on a dominant note, scoring 10.5 and followed it up with a perfect 10.9. Elavenil began the proceedings with a 10.6 and 10.7.
Ramita’s performance started to dip in the first series after she slipped out of the top 20. She finished the first series with a score of 104.3.
Elavenil ended the first series with a score of 105.8 and finished inside the top five. In the second series, Ramita continued to hit the region of 10 and moved to the eighth spot. Valarivan maintained consistency and stayed inside the top five.
Elavenil moved to the second spot in the second series and looked well set for the remainder of the event. Ramita continued to hit the low 10 which affected her positioning.
The event proceeded and Ramita gradually made her comeback while Elavenil floundered in her final shots which led to her downfall.
Ramita struck 10.4 and accumulated 105.7 points in the final to move past Oceanne Muller and book her place in the final.
Earlier, on the opening day, Elavenil tasted defeat along with Sandeep Singh in the 10m air rifle mixed team qualification event.
Only four teams out of 28 had the privilege of qualifying further for the knockout stages, i.e., a gold medal match for the top two teams and a bronze medal match for teams ranked third and fourth.
Driven by the expectations of the entire nation, the duo fought hard for a shot at India’s first medal. Despite their efforts, Elavenil and Sandeep finished in 12th place with 626.3 points, with Elavenil scoring 312.6 points and Sandeep getting 313.7 points.