Paris: In another heartbreak for Indian shooters, Arjun Babuta missed on a medal by a whisker after he finished fourth in the final of the men’s 10 Air Rifle event on Monday. The Indian was in for a top-three finish for the majority of the final but a 9.5 in his 20th shot saw him drop out of the medal contention. Earlier, his compatriot Ramita Jindal finished seventh in the women’s 10m Air Rifle final. Babuta finished with a total of 208.4.
The gold medal went to the Chinese Lihao Sheng while Sweden’s Victor Lindgren took the silver. Croatian Miran Maricic settled for bronze. With this result, Babuta joins Joydeep Karmakar (2012) and Abhinav Bindra (2016) as the only Indian shooters to finish fourth in an Olympic final.
The 25-year-old Babuta started the final with a 10.7 and followed that with a 10.2. A third shot of 10.5 saw him take the fourth spot while a 10.4 in his fourth attempt lifted him to the third spot. He finished the first series with a solid 10.6.
He started the second series with a 10.7, followed that with a 10.5 and shot a near-perfect 10.8 in the second shot of the first elimination series. That effort propelled him into the second place while reducing the deficit between him and world record holder Chinese Sheng Lihao to 0.1 point. However, he could not sustain the form and missed out on the medal.
