India’s campaign at the 2016 Rio Paralympics got underway today and it was a mixed bag for the three athletes. Naresh Kumar Sharma did not enjoy a good outing in the Men's R1-10m Air Rifle Standing-SH1 event as he finished second last among the 22 shooters. Amit Kumar, who participated in the Men's Discus Throw - F51/52 Final event, finished in last position. Farman Basha put on the best performance for the day and finished 4th in Men’s 49kg Powerlifting event.
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The first event of the day featuring an Indian was the Men’s Discus Throw and Amit Kumar Saroha was not up to scratch. He finished 7th among the 7 athletes, out of whom 6 were in F52 category while Kumar himself was in F-51. He did not enjoy a good start and ended up with a best of 9.01 from his six attempts. Aigars Apinis from Latvia (F-52 category) won the gold medal while the silver and bronze were won by Robert Jachimowicz (19.10) and Velimir Sandor (18.24), respectively.
Naresh Kumar Sharma was second Indian on show at Day 1 of the 2016 Rio Paralympics and went up against 21 other athletes in the Men’s 10m Air Rifle event. The Indian athlete, who is a veteran and has participated in multiple Paralympics, was quite off the mark and managed 583.0 in his six rounds on the morning in Rio de Janeiro. The Indian shooter looked out of sorts from the beginning and shot 98.1, 95.6 and 99.2 in his first three series. These put him on the backfoot and despite shooting 103.3 in the fourth and managing to score 583.0 in total, he ended up finishing on 21st place.
South Korea’s Park Jin Ho set the shooting centre on fire with some exceptional shooting and delivered a total score of 625.3 in qualification. He finished first while Laslo Suranji from Serbia and Sultan Abdulla Alaryani from UAE finished third in qualification. The othe qualification spots went to Suwan Kim, Chao Dong, Didier Richard, Jangho Lee and Dingchao Gou.
India’s best hopes, however, were from Farman Basha, who participating in the Men’s Powerlifting 49kg event. He delivered a top class performance but was able to finish only in the fourth position. Basha started off with a successful lift of 140 kg and it put him on the top for a brief while. However, he was soon overtaken by Cong van Le, who was on a roll and set a World Record with a successful lift of 181 kg. Le took home the gold medal while Omar Qarada and Nandor Tunkel won silver and bronze, respectively.
