Shooting, Paris Olympics 2024 Highlights, August 3: Manu Bhaker finishes fourth in women’s 25m pistol; Hancock claims skeet gold

The shooting events are over for the day! That’s it from our side, today, folks. Click the below link for overall day 8 updates. 

Paris 2024 Olympics, Highlights Day 8 — August 3 updates: St. Lucia’s Julien Alfred wins women’s 100m gold; Nishant Dev loses in quarterfinals; Manu Bhaker 4th in 25m pistol

Paris 2024 Olympics, Highlights: Catch the score, updates and commentary from all the events on Day 8, Saturday, August 3 at Paris 2024.

USA’s Vincent Hancock defended his Olympic men’s skeet title by pipping countryman Conner Lynn Prince in the final. Hancock missed two hits and ended with 58, one ahead of Prince. Chinese Taipei’s Meng Yuan Lee finished third to win bronze. 

The men’s skeet final is underway now. Fun fact - India’s Angad Vir Singh Bajwa holds the world record with 60/60 hits in the final. He named the record in 2018 in Kuwait. 

With 71 out of 75 possible hits, Maheshwari Chauhan is placed eighth while Raiza Dhillon missed two hits to finish her third round with 23/25. She is placed 25th with 66/65 hits. The remaining two rounds will resume tomorrow. 

Maheshwari Chauhan up to 11th place with 24 hits in round three as well. Raiza, thus far, hasn’t missed one off the first six.

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(Picture credit: Paris 2024)

A total of 116 means it’s the end of the road for Naruka in Châteauroux. 

Maheshwari improves her ranking slightly after shooting 24 in the second round. She is 13th. Raiza, with 22 hits, is 27th.

Naruka misses one in the fourth round. He ranks 24th ahead of the penultimate round.

Maheshwari Chauhan finishes the first series with 23 points. She is 15th now. Raiza, the other Indian in fray, is 25th with 21 hits in the first round.

“I was nervous. Things aren’t always meant to be. I am already looking forward to the next round. I was trying to do my best. The fourth place is not a very good place to be in. I have been off social media. I am not checking my phone at all. I am looking forward to having lunch. I have been skipping lunch all this while, training at the range whole day.”

- Manu Bhaker after missing the bronze medal by a whisker

Camille Jedrzejewski and Jiin to have a SO for gold. Jiin gets four greens, compared to Jedrzejewski who gets one hit to finish with silver.

4 again from Manu! After briefly moving to the gold medal spot, Manu comes down to the second spot again. Zhao Nan, the World Cup final medallist, is fifth.

Rostamiyan leaves in sixth place. She smiles and waves for the camera. Manu, meanwhile, registers 4 hits.

A 5 from Manu. She moves to the bronze medal place. Asian Championships bronze medallist Trinh Thu Vinh exits with 16 hits in total.

Iran’s Haniyeh Rostamiyan and Katelyn Morgan Abeln of USA in the danger zone as of now. And the American has been eliminated after she misses all of her shots. Meanwhile, Manu slips to 6th after registering only 3 hits.

The average age in this Olympic final is 23. That’s wonderful news for the future of the sport. Meanwhile, Manu hits a 4 again to improve her standing to 2nd (tied with four others). Korea’s Yang Jiin leads with 13 hits.

She gets a 4 in the next series to jump up to the 4th place. Two more series until the first elimination.

Anything under a 10.2 is recorded as a miss. Bhaker only registers 2 hits in the first series.

The athletes have been instructed to load ahead of the traditional Coups de bâtons ceremony. Know what the ceremony symbolises.

Manu Bhaker does the customary wave with a smile as she is greeted with loud cheers from the stands.

The sighting time begins for 25m pistol women’s final.

Bhaker (Bib No. 1431) will be taking up firing point G.

Raiza Dhillon shoots down five of the first five targets.

The 25m pistol women’s final consists of 10 five-shot rapid-fire series with hit-or-miss scoring. The elimination of the lowest scoring finalists begins after the fourth series and continues until the 10th series when the gold and silver medals are decided.

In skeet, 125 targets are fired at over five rounds. The qualification is shot across two days. 

Target Shooting Sequence for Qualification Rounds:

Eventually, the six top athletes from qualification make the final.

12:30 - Skeet men’s qualification (Anantjeet Singh Naruka)

12:30 - Skeet women’s qualification (Maheshwari Chauhan, Raiza Dhillon)

13:00 - 25m pistol women’s final (Manu Bhaker)

19:00 - Skeet men’s final (Subject to qualification)

The live telecast of the Paris Olympics will be available on Sports18 while the live streaming will be available on JioCinema in India from July 26 to August 11. Only the finals of the shooting events will be televised.

While you wait for the action to begin at the range, take a look at the list of Indians who are set to be in action at the Paris Olympics today.

Paris 2024 Olympics, Day 8: Indians in action — August 3 schedule, full list of events, venues, timings in IST, live streaming info

On August 3, Indian athletes will be in action across multiple disciplines such as shooting, sailing, archery and boxing.

Lock ‘n load! It’s almost time to climb aboard the hype train to Châteauroux, where 21 Indian shooters will take on the mission of going up against 321 of the world’s best to claim the ultimate prize — an Olympic medal.

The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) announcing the squad way ahead of July 8 — the Paris 2024 entry deadline — felt like the calm before the storm. The shooters have had an acclimatisation and a hard-training camp at Volmerange-Les-Mines, followed by a two-week break while waiting for Judgement Day.

India has never had more shooters representing the country at the Olympics. Tokyo 2020 saw a previous best of 15. This time, among the 81 participating nations and the IOC (International Olympic Committee) Refugee Team, India will send the most shooters to France, tying with China, followed by the Republic of Korea, which has 16.

It is mostly a new-look squad except for familiar faces in pistol star Manu Bhaker and rifle wielders Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Anjum Moudgil and Elavenil Valarivan. Having waded through the choppy waters of Tokyo, they will be up and running soon for a second shot at glory.

While those who have already performed on the biggest stage would believe that past experience will help them fare better this time, the debutants may be thankful for not having to carry any baggage from previous editions.

Let’s do a quick recap. After returning empty-handed from Tokyo, Indian shooters experienced a curious mix of highs and lows in the subsequent years. Amid developments like numerous rule changes and overhauls in the coaching set-up, several prominent names such as Saurabh Chaudhary, Abhishek Verma, Apurvi Chandela, and Rahi Sarnobat faded from scorecards for different reasons. A change of guard brought newcomers like Sift Kaur Samra and Sarabjot Singh to the forefront. Others, like Bhaker, entered recovery mode, deeply affected by the media scrutiny. However, she appears to have bounced back just in time.

One of the many factors that will work in favour of the Indians this time is the absence of Russia from the roster owing to the strict qualification restrictions in place after the latter invaded Ukraine.

Although the IOC stated that, as of July 13, 15 AINs (Athlètes Individuels Neutres/Individual Neutral Athletes) with Russian passports had qualified for the Summer Games in Paris (with a maximum of 55 eligible to make it), none of them happens to be shooters.

READ THE FULL PREVIEW BY SANTADEEP DEY HERE.