Archer, shooters fail to fire on a disappointing day for India

RIO DE JANEIRO: It was a disappointing day for India at the Rio Games on Monday. Archer Laxmirani Majhi bowed out of the women’s individual event as did trap shooters Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Kynan Chenai. Majhi was beaten 101-108 by Slovakian Alexandra Longova. She trailed for the very beginning of the contest and lost three of the four rounds, eventually going down 25-27, 26-28, 26-26, 24-27. Beginning the contest nervously, she could notch up only 25 points out in the first round, her opponent taking an advantage of 2 points. The Slovakian steadily extended her advantage over the 27-year-old Indian as the match went on. She scored 28 out of a possible 30 in the second round whereas Laxmirani managed only 26.

The Jharkhand-born Bengal based archer managed to hold the gap in the third round where both scored 26 each. She needed big scores in the fourth round but failed to hit the perfect core of 10 in any of her three shots, managing only 7,8 and 9 to post a low score of 24. That virtually sealed her fate. SHOOTERS FAIL Manavjit and Chenai could hardly improve on their opening day performance and failed to qualify for the semifinals, signing off at 16th and 19th respectively on the second and final day of qualification.

While Manavjit shot 23, 23, 22, 25, 22 to total 115, Chenai ended with 22, 23, 22 24, 23 for a total of 114. Only the top six from the two-day qualifiers made the cut for the semis.

Swimmer Shivani Kataria failed to qualify for the 200m freestyle final with a timing of 2.09.30 in the first heat.