India at Olympics 2021: 3 things we learned from women's 10m air pistol as Manu Bhaker, Yashaswini Singh Deswal fail to get past the qualification stage

The women’s 10m air pistol discipline was the first shooting event of Sunday, 25th July at Olympics 2021. World No.1 Yashaswini Singh Deswal and World No.2 Manu Bhaker represented the Indian Shooting team in this discipline.

Unfortunately, neither of them could get past the qualification stage. Manu Bhaker finished in 12th place with 575/600 points whereas Yashaswini Deswal finished in 13th place with 574/600 points. The cut-off for the 8-shooter final turned out to be lower than expected - 577/600 points.

China’s Ranxin Jiang finished at the top of the qualification leader-board with 587 points. This meant that she set the new QOR (Qualification Olympic Record). This is the first instance in Olympic history in which the ‘60-shot’ qualification stage is implemented. In the earlier editions, the ‘40-shot’ qualification stage was in place to decide the finalists in the women's 10m air pistol event.

Here are 3 takeaways from the qualification event

#1 Pistol malfunction hurts Manu Bhaker's chances

Logo covering as per ioc rules as @realmanubhaker makes everything’s in place before d-day @WeAreTeamIndia @ISSF_Shooting @Tokyo2020 #shooting #indianshootingteam #tokyoolympics #tokyo2020 #olympics pic.twitter.com/wZOFn05XQO

— NRAI (@OfficialNRAI) July 23, 2021

As per ground reports, teen sensation Manu Bhaker had to endure an equipment glitch. During her 2nd series, she lost more than 5 minutes from the overall stipulated time of 75 minutes.

This is not the first time that an equipment malfunction has taken a toll on her performance. At the ISSF World Cup in Munich, Germany in 2019, she had to exit the final of the 25m event because her pistol got stuck.

#2 Manu Bhaker fights till the end

The split-up of Manu Bhaker’s 6 series is 98, 95, 94, 95, 98, 95. The point to note here is that she lost momentum due to the forced break. She did make a late surge by dropping only two points in the 5th series. However, a couple of 9’s in the last series meant she was left behind!

Manu Bhaker’s 60th shot was a mis-hit. She scored an 8. Had she scored a 10, it would have tied her with the last two finalists, who ended on 577/600 points each. However, since they had 15x as compared to Manu's 14x, the Indian shooter would still have failed to qualify for the finals. Manu would have needed to score an inner 10 and then qualifed in 7th place, courtesy of her higher last set scores (97) after tying on overall scores and number of 10x shots.

The breakdown of Yashaswini Singh Deswal’s 6 series is 94, 98, 94, 97, 96, 95. Clearly, her first series wasn’t the start she would have hoped for. It took her more than 15 minutes to fire-in the initial 10 shots.

#3 Mixed Event should be the next target

The two markswomen will have another chance to bag a medal in the form of a 10m pistol mixed event.

Manu will be paired up with Saurabh Chaudhary for that event. Saurabh made it into the final of men’s 10m air pistol event. However, he bowed out in 7th place in the finals.

Yashaswini will team up with Abhishek Verma, who also faltered at the qualification stage. The 10m pistol mixed event of Olympics 2021 is scheduled for Tuesday, 27th July.

Read - The world still at Saurabh Chaudhary's feet despite heartbreaking shooting final loss!