India’s Heena Sidhu was knocked out of her second event of the Rio Olympic Games as the shooter finished at the 20th spot in the qualification round of the women’s 25m air pistol event at the Olympic Shooting Centre in Rio. The shooter could manage a meagre tally of 576 points out of the maximum 600 points. This results in yet another disappointment for the nation as the 26-year old was the last woman shooter to feature for the nation at Rio.
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Precision round
In the 25m air pistol event, there are two sub categories in which the qualification round takes place. The first is the precision category where Heena started off with the first batch of 20 shooters out of the total 40. She started without any real steel in her game and could fire only 95 points in her first series where she shot 5 ten-pointers. The Indian could not get her act together in the second series of the precision round as she shot another 95 points which saw her struggle at the 16th spot in the points table.
A perfect 100 in her third series of the precision round would have lifted her rank, but even the leader, Serbia’s Bobana Velickovic, had managed identical scores of 99 points in her first two series. Hence, expecting a perfect 100 from the Indian sounded a bit too optimistic. However, Sidhu did get herself higher up the table as she had 68 out of 70 points after completing 7 shots in her third series. But two more misses in her last three shots meant that the shooter finished her third series with 96 points. Consequently, Sidhu finished the precision round of the qualification stage at the 15th spot with a tally of 286 points with the second batch of 20 shooters yet to start their event.
The second batch of shooters started off well and it meant that after the completion of allotted shots of all shooters, Heena Sidhu was consigned to the 30th position in the overall rankings. Greece’s Anna Korakaki finished the round with a total of 297 points as she was the only shooter to score a perfect 100 points in her first series.
Rapid Fire round
Heena started the rapid fire round in the first batch again with a bit of flair as she struck 97 points in the first series. The shooter looked on course to improve her rankings and have an outside chance of qualifying for the final round as she fired 97 points again in her second series. But it could only take her up to the 20th spot which was still not enough as the second batch of shooters hadn’t started shooting yet.
The 26-year-old ended her participation in the qualification round with a final series score of 96 points which took her tally in the rapid fire round to 290 points out of 300. This meant that the shooter would finish at a combined tally of (286+290)= 576 points which meant she finished at the 18th spot in the ranking with the second batch of shooters yet to compete. Her ranking was further diminished as she finished the round at the 20th spot. In what was Heena’s misery, China’s Jingjing Zhang’s had glory, the Chinese star went on to create an Olympic record as she fired 592 points in the qualification round, beating 2012’s record of 591 which was set by South Korea’s Jangmi Kim.
The final list of top-8 shooters who have qualified for the semi-final round of the event is given below:
1) Jingjing Zhang (China) – 592 points
2) Anna Korakaki (Greece) – 584 points
3) Nino Salukvadze (Georgia) – 584 points
4) Monika Karsch (Germany) – 583 points
5) Antoaneta Boneva (Bulgaria) – 583 points
6) Yong Suk Jo (North Korea) – 582 points
7) Heidi Diethelm Gerber (Switzerland) – 582 points
8) Ekaterina Korshunova (Russia) – 582 points
