Chateauroux (France), Aug 31, 2024
Indian para-shooter Rubina Francis advanced to the women’s 10m air pistol SH1 final in the ongoing Paris Paralympics after finishing seventh in the qualification round here at Chateauroux on Saturday.
Rubina failed to get a good start in the qualification round as she shot back-to-back 90s in the opening two series and was placed out of the top eight in the competition. She bounced back strong and made improvements in the third series to accumulate 95 followed by 92, 95 and 94 respectively to take her total to 556-13x and cement a spot in the final.
Rubina gradually bettered her standing from 13th after the first series to seventh in the end. She will now aim for the medal in the final scheduled at 6:15 pm IST later in the day.
Iran’s Sareh Javanmardi topped the qualification round with a total of 570 ahead of Hungary’s Krisztina David (567-17x) and France’s Gaelle Edon (567-16x).
Earlier in the day, Swaroop Unhalkar missed a place in the final in the men’s 10m air rifle standing (SH1) after finishing 14th in the qualification round with a score of 613.4.
South Korea’s Park Jin-Ho, who is also a Paralympic qualification record holder with a score of 631.3 in 2021, finished first with a score of 624.4, followed by Denmark’s Martin Joergenson, who finished with 621.8 and was closely followed by China’s Chao Dong who finished with a difference of 0.2 behind the Dane.
On Friday, India won three medals in shooting in the ongoing Paralympics as Avni Lekhara and Mona Agarwal from Rajasthan won gold and bronze medals respectively, in the women’s 10m air rifle SH-1 and Manish Narwal clinched a silver medal in the men’s 10m air pistol SH1 with a score of 234.9.(Agency)
