CHENNAI: Indian pistol shooters put up a subdued show on Day 1 of the ISSF World Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan. All the air pistol shooters could not get past the qualification hurdle.
In the men's 10m air pistol, Shiva Narwal shot a total of 579 to finish 17th. A spot behind him was Sarabjot Singh with a tally of 578. The top-eight finishers earn the right to compete in the final. China's Bowen Zhang was the topper in the qualification stage and he went on to dominate the finals.
Two finalists, Mikec Damir and Ismail Keles, had already secured an Olympic quota before entering the final and they finished second and fourth, respectively. That meant the shooters who finished sixth and seventh won quotas apart from Zhang and third-placed Kiril Kirov of Bulgaria. Liu Junhui of China finished fifth but he's ineligible as only one quota is allowed from a particular country (per category).
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The Indian shooters ended up with a consolation prize as their combined tally of 1734 was enough to fetch them a bronze medal in the team event.
In the corresponding women's event, the Indians were well below the qualifying standards. Esha Singh finished 32nd with a tally of 572 while Palak shot 570 to finish 40th. Divya TS shot 566 to end up 66th. In the finals, Jiang Ranxin edged former champ Anna Korakaki of Greece to win gold.
The Indian skeet shooters also began their journey. In a category where the margin for error is bare minimum, Anant Jeet Singh Naruka was the best-placed Indian at 45th spot with a tally of 48 after two rounds.
The women fared much better with Dhaliwal Parinaaz placed at 17th after an effort of 71 after three rounds in Day 1 of qualification. Ganemat Sekhon was placed 30th. Darshna Rathore was 38th. It has to be noted that the men have three more rounds to play on Day 2 and they'll be hoping to catch the leaders. The women have two more rounds of qualification left.
