Chateauroux:The curse of finishing fourth in an Olympics can be devastating. After Milkha Singh, PT Usha, Abhinav Bindra, Joydeep Karmakar, Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna et al, Arjun Babuta joined that depressing list at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre here on Monday.
“It was a bitter pill to swallow for sure. Finishing fourth is the worst possible position any athlete can think of but it is what it is,” said Babuta at the end of the Paris Olympics 10m air rifle final for men.
In a dramatic turn of fate, debutant Babuta ended his Paris 2024 campaign but not before staying in contention for a medal until he was the fourth man to be eliminated in the final stretch of the competition.
In the women’s 10m air rifle final earlier in the day, 20-year-old Ramita Jindal, another debutant for India, finished seventh in an event dominated by two teenagers from the Orient. Korean Hyojin Ban, all of 16, won the gold while China’s 17-year-old Yuting Huang grabbed the silver.
In what was perhaps the most exciting shooting final of the Paris Olympics so far, both Ban and Huang were tied at the Olympic record score of 251.8. The gold was decided by a heart-stopping shoot-off in which Ban hit 10.4 and Huang scored 10.3. Huang, who won the 10m air rifle mixed team gold on Saturday, thus became the first shooter to win multiple medals at Paris 2024.
Manu Bhaker, who on Sunday created history by becoming India’s first woman shooter to clinch an Olympics medal, combined well with Sarabjot Singh to stay in contention for a bronze in the 10m air pistol mixed team event. The second Indian team of Rhythm Sangwan and Arjun Cheema finished 10th in the qualifiers with a score of 576.
Bhaker and Singh finished third in the qualifiers with a score of 580. Bhaker scored 291 with a dozen perfect (inner 10) scores while Singh contributed 289 with eight perfects.
It was good to see Singh picking up his pieces after he had failed to qualify for the 10m air pistol finals on Saturday. Singh was left devastated after he finished ninth, missing on the eighth and final spot by one less perfect score. India will compete with Korea (579) for the bronze on the morrow. Turkey and Serbia will contest for the gold.
Arjun Babuta was India’s tragic hero on Monday. His exit after staying in the top two till the third elimination round was yet another telling commentary on how precision and power of the mind matter in shooting.
Babuta, who finished with a score of 208.4,came under severe pressure from Sweden’s Victor Lindgren, the reigning 10m air rifle world champion, and Croatia’s Miran Maricic. An under-par 9.5 in the fifth elimination round became Babuta’s undoing as Maricic and Lindgren scored 10.7 and 10, respectively, to progress to the medal rounds.
Leading from start to finish, China’s 19-year-ol Lihao Sheng, the world record holder, won the Paris 2024 10m air rifle gold with an Olympic record score of 252.2. Lindgren (251.4) and Maricic (230) finished with silver and bronze, respectively.
Both Sheng and Lindgren said Babuta was a good shooter and the closeness of the finals reflected that. The Swede admitted that “he was under pressure to score a 10 and he was lucky he got that.”
“Somewhere I believe in luck and it was not my day. I did my best but somewhere down the line I certainly came up short. One needs to reflect and discuss with my team and see how best to overcome such situations,” confessed Babuta.
There was some instant relief for the 25-year-old from Punjab’s Fazilka, a multiple gold medallist at the 2022 ISSF World Cup in Changwon, South Korea. Beijing Olympics champion Abhinav Bindra, who has tasted the pain of finishing fourth at Rio 2016, consoled Babuta.
“He (Bindra) was proud to see me shoot like that. He said it’s tough for sure but I have to accept it and just move on. It will help me in future and make me stronger,” said Babuta, adding that “one (bad) day does not describe me as a shooter and there is no guarantee of a medal no matter how hard you try.”
Ramita Jindal was not as gutted as Babuta. She said Monday was a “fun final” and the competitive nature of the Olympics gave her a lot of lessons. “Given all the shootoffs, it’s clear that one has to live in the moment because one bad shot can destroy you. I am taking a lot of confidence away from the Paris Games,” said the 20-year-old from Kurukshetra, Haryana.
On Monday, India also began their campaign at the Chatearoux shotgun ranges but Prithviraj Tondaiman’s first-day qualification score of 68 after three rounds gave him very little chance of making the top six final stage.
