Saurabh Chaudhary’s brilliant run in the Men’s 10m Air Pistol event however didn’t last too long as the youngster was eliminated early in the final.
The Indian, who topped the tally in the qualifying round earlier in the day, was the second to get eliminated and finished at 7th with a final score of 137.4 after 14 shots.
In the final, Saurabh’s lowest shot was 8.8 while the highest was 10.6. Before Saurabh, it was Korean Mose Kim who was the first to be eliminated from the final.
Chaudhary got things rolling with a 10.1 in the finals, but he finished at the bottom of the pile after the first five shots with a score of 47.7. After 10 shots, the Meerut-born marksman had moved to seventh and was only 0.3 points behind sixth-placed Christian Reitz of Germany.
Tied at 107.0 after the first elimination shot, Chaudhary managed to stay on with 117.2 points, even as South Korea's Korea's Kim Mose was the first to get eliminated (115.8 points).
Before the next shot, China's Zhang Bowen had a 0.3 point deficit, but walking into the deciding shot Saurabh registered a poor 9.6 to Zhang's 10.2 and became the second marksman in the finals to get eliminated.
The 19-year-old Saurabh however still has the mixed event to come where he will partner Manu Bhaker on 27 July.
Earlier in the day, Saurabh finished with a score of 586/600 while Abhishek Verma failed to progress to the final. Abhishek, was in the reckoning for a place in the finals. But he shot two 9s followed by two 8s in his last four shots, which meant that he finished 17th with a score of 575.
The 31-year-old Verma had an iffy start with 94 in the first series. He was able to overcome it by shooting 96 and 98 in the second and third series respectively. A 97 in the fourth series and 98 in five propelled him to reach inside the top-eight.
After that India won their first medal at the Tokyo Olympics when Weightlifter Mirabai Chanu won a Silver.
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