Heena Sidhu, India’s medal hope in Rio Olympics Games, crashed out of the 10m Air Pistol Women’s Qualification round today, as Indian shooters’s disappointing run continued in Rio De Janeiro.
Heena finished at 14th position in the field of 44 shooters, way behind the leaders in the qualifying round.
26-year-old 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games silver medallist shot an overall 380, which included 13x.
Russia’s Vitalina Batsarashkina topped the qualification round with a score of 390 points, including 14x.
The 26-year-old Heena will now try to make amends when she competes in 25m pistol schedule to be held on August 9.
Heena, who had finished 12th in her maiden Olympics in London 2012, failed to recover from a poor start and became the fourth shooter to be eliminated in day two of the competition.
The cut for the eight team finalists was applied at 384 with seven closest to the centre circle which was shot by Sonia Franquet of Spain.
The 2010 Commonwealth Games gold medalist Heena began with a poor 94 in the first series. She improved her scoring by one point to finish with a score of 95 in the second series but only to lie lowly at 26th position. She scored 96 and 95 in the next two series to bow out.
Yesterday, the duo of Apurvi Chandela and Ayonika Paul failed to qualify in the women’s 10m air rifle event.
Apurvi a World Cup Final silver medalist and Commonwealth Games gold winner, finished 34th with a score of 411.6 while Ayonika ended at 43rd place with a final score of 407.
It was Jitu Rai who could make the final in the 10m air pistol but exited by finishing eighth.
Gurpreet Singh, the other shooter in the 10m air pistol, ended 20th in a field of 46.
(With PTI inputs)
