New Delhi: Indian para-shooter Rubina Francis entered the final of the women’s 10m air pistol SH1 event at the Paris Paralympics after she finished seventh in qualification at Chateauroux on Saturday.
Rubina started off slowly in qualification, recording two continuous scores of 90s in the first two series for a place outside the top eight but improved with 95 in the third series to follow through with 92, 95, and 94 for a total of 556-13x and a place in the final.
Rubina steadily climbed from 13th place after the first series to finish in seventh, securing her spot in the final. She will now focus on competing for a medal in the final, scheduled for 6:15 pm IST later today.
Iran’s Sareh Javanmardi topped the qualification round with a total of 570 ahead of Hungary’s Krisztina David (567-17x) and France’s Gaelle Edon (567-16x).
Earlier in the day, Swaroop Unhalkar missed a place in the final in the men’s 10m air rifle standing (SH1) after finishing 14th in the qualification round with a score of 613.4.
The current Paralympic qualification record holder with 631.3 in 2021, South Korea’s Park Jin-Ho topped with 624.4, while Denmark’s Martin Joergenson finished with 621.8 and was closely followed by China’s Chao Dong, who finished 0.2 behind the Dane.
On Friday, India won three medals in shooting in the ongoing Paralympics as Avni Lekhara and Mona Agarwal from Rajasthan won gold and bronze medals respectively, in the women’s 10m air rifle SH-1 and Manish Narwal clinched a silver medal in the men’s 10m air pistol SH1 with a score of 234.9.
