Shooting at Tokyo Olympics Day 2: Manu Bhaker among medal hopefuls

Sunday will see Indian shooters participating in Women's 10M Air Pistol, Men's 10M Air Rifle finals & Men's Skeet.

The Indian Shooting team will make four more attempts on Sunday at opening their medal count in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games Shooting competition.

Manu Bhaker and Yashaswini Deswal line-up in the Women’s 10M Air Pistol qualifiers in the morning session, while in the afternoon, Deepak Kumar and Divyansh Singh Panwar will compete in the Men’s 10M Air Rifle event.

The qualification round for Women’s Pistol begins at 5.30am IST while the finals are scheduled for 7.45am IST. The Men’s Rifle qualifiers start at 9.30am IST with the finals being scheduled for 12 noon IST.

The women will again be looking to break the 580 mark at the bare minimum, to strengthen their claims for a finals spot. The top eight will qualify from the 53-woman field after 60-shots are fired in 75 minutes.

The Men’s 10M Air Rifle has a 47-man draw and will also have a 60-shot qualification round, but with decimal scoring in place, the comfort score is around 630 to ensure a finals berth.

Yashaswini and Manu go into the competition as world numbers one and two respectively, while Divyansh is world number two in Men’s 10M Air Rifle even as his senior compatriot Deepak Kumar ranks 11th currently.

Shooting at Tokyo Olympics: Mairaj and Angad to take the field in Men’s Skeet on Sunday

Action also begins for the Shotgun disciplines in Shooting at the Asaka Shooting Range on Sunday, day two of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic Games Shooting competition, as India’s Mairaj Ahmad Khan and Angad Vir Singh Bajwa attempt to qualify for the medal rounds of the Men’s Skeet competition.

Sunday will be day one of qualifying in Men’s Skeet which will have three of the five 25-shot rounds being played out from 6am IST through the day. Day two, Monday, has the final two rounds before the top six make it to the 60-shot final (Monday, 12.20pm IST).

Mairaj, now into his second Olympic Games and Angad making his debut, have been training in Italy in the build up to the Games. It is a compact but naturally strong Olympic field of 30 and the two will have their task cut out to make it to the medal round.

In Skeet, clay targets are thrown in a particular order for each of the eight Shooting stations set on a semi-circular field from two “High House” & “Low House” strategically placed throwing machines. A total of 25 such targets are thrown in one series.

In such world-class competitions often a score of 123 or 124 out of 125 in qualifying might lead to a shoot-off to separate the top six. Mairaj has a world competition best of 122 and Angad 121 and will have to shoot well above them-selves to have a decent shot at a medal.

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