Paris Olympics 2024: Ramita Jindal Enters Women’s 10m Air Rifle Final After Finishing 5th In Qualification

New Delhi: Ramita Jindal qualified to the final of women’s 10m Air Rifle event with a 631.5 in the qualification round at the Paris Olympics 2024 on Sunday. Jindal, who finished fifth in the qualification round, became the second Indian shooter after Manu Bhaker to qualify for the final. The other Indian in the fray, Elavenil Valarivan, missed out on the qualification after finishing 10th place with a score of 630.7.

Ramita, the Hangzhou Asian Games bronze medallist in the event, had a sluggish start and was not among the top-eight till the sixth and final series but she rallied superbly to book a berth in the final while stalwart Elavenil, who had finished 16th at the Tokyo Olympics three years back, held on to the fifth position for much of the qualification round.

But a poor last series of 103.8 saw the 24-year-old former junior world champion take a mighty tumble from fifth to 10th slot and miss the eight-shooter final. Ramita, who had scored 636.4 points, 0.1 more than the world record during the Olympic Selection Trials in New Delhi and Bhopal, was patchy initially, shooting a below-par 104.6 in the opening series before she shot 106.1 in the next round.

Another ordinary 104.9 was followed by two successive 105.3 and a 105.7 which fetched her a dream entry into the final. South Korea’s Ban Hyojin smashed the Qualification Olympic Record (QOR) with a superb score of 634.5, eclipsing the previous mark of 632.9 set by Norway’s Jeanette Hegg in Tokyo Games.

Elavenil, who had struggled following the Tokyo Games and could not enter the squad for the Hangzhou Asian Games last year, kept averaging a score of 10.5 throughout the qualifying round as she shot superb series of 105.8, 106.1, 104.4, 105.3, 105.3 but a rank poor final series of 103.8 saw her bow out.