 "Paris Olympics 2024: Manu Bhaker wins historic bronze as Indian women take centre-stage on Day 2")
Shooter Manu Bhaker won a historic bronze as Indian women took centre-stage on Sunday, the second day of the 2024 Paris Olympics. Besides Bhakar, boxer Nikhat Zareen, shuttler PV Sindhu as well as paddlers Manika Batra and Sreeja Akula registered victories in their respective events.
Bhaker became the toast of the nation after winning bronze in the women’s 10m air pistol event with a final score of 221.7. Not only did she open India’s account in the Paris Games, she also became the first Indian woman to win a shooting medal at the Olympics.
Paris Olympics: News, schedule, medals tally and more
It was also India’s first Olympic medal in shooting since Vijay Kumar and Gagan Narang won silver and bronze in the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol and 10m air rifle events in the 2012 London Olympics.
It was also a dream comeback for the 22-year-old shooter from Haryana’s Jhajjar three years after she had suffered a gun malfunction in the Tokyo 2020 Games, which was preceded by a falling out with her coach Jaspal Rana.
Profile | Who is Manu Bhaker - India's bronze medallist at Paris Olympics
South Korea secured a top-two finish in the event with Oh Ye-jin and Kim Ye-ji winning gold and silver respectively, the former smashing the Olympic record with a score of 243.2 to win gold.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThere was more good news in store for the Indian shooting contingent on Sunday with Ramita Jindal and Arjun Babuta qualifying for the final of the 10m air rifle events in the women’s and men’s categories respectively.
Sindhu, Prannoy off to winning starts
Sindhu, meanwhile began her quest for a third consecutive Olympic medal with a comfortable 21-9, 21-6 victory over Maldives’ Fathimath Abdul Razzaq in her women’s singles Group M clash.
Such was the dominance of Sindhu, who had won silver in Rio 2016 and bronze in Tokyo 2020, that she took just 13 minutes to seal Game 1 and had as many as 14 match points in the second game.
Later in the day, Prannoy made a solid impression in his first match at the Summer Olympics at the age of 32 as he defeated Germany’s Fabian Roth 21-18 21-12 in the men’s singles Group K clash.
While Roth gave Prannoy a tough fight in the first game, it was a one-way street in favour of the Indian in the second.
Both Sindhu and Prannoy will be in action on Wednesday in their second group-stage fixtures. While Sindhu faces Estonia’s Kristin Kuuba, Prannoy will be up against Vietnam’s Le Duc Phat.
Lakshya Sen, however, was dealt a blow despite not having taken to the court on Sunday, with his straight-games victory against Kevin Cordon on the previous day set to be written off the Paris 2024 records. This after the Guatemalan shuttler withdrew from the tournament with a left elbow injury that has effectively reduced Group L to a three-person Group.
While Indonesia’s Jonatan Christie and Belgium’s Julien Carraggi, who are in the same group as Sen, will play only two games, the Indian will end up playing three even if one of them will no longer count.
Batra, Sreeja advance while Sharath Kamal bows out
In table tennis, both Batra and Sreeja won their respective Round of 64 events in the women’s singles section while it was curtains for Achanta Sharath Kamal and Harmeet Desai, resulting in the Indian challenge coming to an abrupt end in men’s singles on Sunday.
Star shuttler Batra, making her third Olympic appearance, defeated Great Britain’s Anna Hursey 11-8 12-10 11-9 9-11 11-5 while Sreeja thrashed Sweden’s Christina Kallberg 11-4 11-9 11-7 11-8.
Batra, thus, advanced to the women’s singles Round of 32 for the second time in the Olympics, having become the first Indian woman to do so in the Tokyo games three years ago.
Sharath Kamal, however, was in for a shock as he suffered a 2-4 (12-10 9-11 6-11 7-11 11-8 10-12) defeat at the hands of Slovenia’s Deni Kozul, ranked 86 places below him, despite seizing the early lead.
The 42-year-old, who had been one of India’s flag-bearers in the Opening Ceremony, would have had his eyes on reaching the quarter-finals in his fifth and final appearance at the Olympics.
Desai too bowed out with a 0-4 (11-8, 11-8, 11-6, 11-8) defeat at the hands of France’s Felix Lebrun a day after he beat Jordan’s Zaid Yaman by a similar margin.
Women’s archery team bows out with a whimper
Indian boxers, meanwhile, registered a second victory in as many days at the Olympics with World Championships gold medallist Nikhat Zareen defeating Maxi Carina Kloetzer in her opening women’s 50kg bout on Sunday.
This a day after Preeti Pawar defeated Vietnam’s Vo Thi Kim Anh with a unanimous verdict in the women’s 54kg category, shining on debut in the process.
Also making progress was Balraj Panwar, the lone Indian rower in the Paris Games who advanced to the men’s single sculls quarter-finals after clocking 7 minutes 12.41 seconds to finish second in Repechage 2.
However, it was curtains for the trio of Deepika Kumari, Ankita Bhakat and Bhajan Kaur on Sunday as they suffered a 0-6 thrashing at the hands of Netherlands in the quarter-finals of the women’s team archery event.
The Indians had secured direct qualification for the quarter-finals on the basis of their combined scores in the ranking round while Netherlands had to defeat France in pre-quarters. India, however, failed to breach the quarter-final barrier once again as the Dutch trio hit the 10s and 9s far more consistently.
End of the road in swimming, tennis
It was also the end of the road for India’s tennis and swimming contingents on Sunday. Sumit Nagal went down fighting against France’s Corentin Moutet 2-6, 6-2, 5-7 to crash out of the men’s singles competition in the first round.
The men’s doubles pair of Rohan Bopanna and N Sriram Balaji wouldn’t make it past the first round either as the French pair of Gael Monfils and Edouard Roger-Vasselin defeated them 7-5, 6-2.
As for the swimmers, neither Srihari Nataraj nor Dhinidhi Desinghu — the youngest member of the Indian contingent at 14 years of age — would be able to reach the semi-finals of the men’s 100m backstroke and women’s 200m freestyle events respectively.
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