Indian shooters disappoint, make early exits in Tokyo Olympics

Tokyo:India's shooting campaign received a further setback as its shooters in the mixed team events in the air pistol and air rifle made early exits after a poor show here on Tuesday.

In the 10m air pistol event, Saurabh Chaudhary and Manu Bhaker failed to qualify for the mixed team medal matches in qualifying stage 2, while Abhishek Verma and Yashaswini Singh Deswal, exited after finishing 17th in qualifying stage 1.

Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary made a poor start and finished seventh with a total score of 380 (Saurabh 194/200 and Manu 186/200). To qualify they needed to finish in the top four for any of the two medal matches from among the eight teams in the field.

Earlier the second Indian team in the mixed doubles air pistol competition of Abhishek Verma and Yashaswini Singh Deswal crashed out after a disappointing outing in stage 1 qualifiers at the Asaka Shooting Range.

In the 10m air rifle mixed team event, the Indian teams of Elavenil Valarivan and Divyansh Singh Panwar and Anjum Moudgil and Deepak Kumar failed to make it to the second stage of qualification, as both the Indian shooting pairs crashed out in the first stage of the qualification round.

While Elavenil Valarivan and Divyansh Singh Panwar finished 12th, Anjum Moudgil and Deepak Kumar only managed the 18th spot.Only the top eight can advance to the next stage of qualification.(UNI)