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Indian shooters Manu Bhaker and Sarabjot Singh win bronze in the 10m air pistol mixed team event at Paris 2024, marking India’s first-ever team event shooting medal and Manu Bhaker’s second medal at these Olympics.
Indian shooters Manu Bhaker and Sarabjot Singh made history by securing a bronze medal in the 10m air pistol mixed team shooting event at the Paris 2024 Olympics on Tuesday.
This achievement marks India’s sixth Olympic medal in shooting and the first-ever in a shooting team event. Additionally, Manu Bhaker became the first athlete from independent India to win two medals in a single edition of the Olympics, having previously secured a medal in an individual event on Sunday.
Competing at the National Shooting Center in Chateauroux, Manu Bhaker and Sarabjot Singh defeated the Republic of Korea’s Oh Ye Jin and Wonho Lee 16-10 in the bronze medal match. Notably, Oh Ye Jin had won the gold medal in the women’s 10m air pistol event on Sunday.
Manu Bhaker started the match strongly, shooting a 10.2 on her opening shot. Although Sarabjot Singh’s 8.6 cost India the first two points, he quickly recovered with impressive scores of 10.5, 10.4, and 10, helping India take the next six points.
Manu Bhaker consistently hit scores of at least 10 on her first seven shots. Despite this, Oh Ye Jin’s consistent performance kept the South Koreans in contention, recovering from an 8-2 deficit to stretch the match to 14-10.
In the final moments, Oh Ye Jin, the Olympic champion, shot a 9 while her partner managed a 9.5. Manu Bhaker hit a 9.4, but Sarabjot Singh’s 10.2 secured the bronze medal for India.
“It’s great. The first medal was really good, and again the fight was really tough,” Manu said. “It was neck and neck with each shot, like with my first bronze. But the last shot was Sarabjot’s, so big up to him.”
The Indian shooters had 19 of their 26 shots hit at least a 10, while the South Koreans had 12 such shots.
On Monday, Manu Bhaker and Sarabjot Singh finished third in the qualifying round, earning their place in the bronze medal match behind Turkey’s Sevval Ilayda Tarhan-Yusuf Dikec and Serbia’s Zorana Arunovic-Damir Mikec. Serbia went on to win the gold medal with a 16-14 victory over Turkey.
The top two teams from the field of 17 qualified for the gold medal match, while the third and fourth-placed teams played for bronze.
With this achievement, two of India’s six Olympic medals in shooting have now come at Paris 2024. The only other instance of Indian shooters winning two medals in a single edition of the Olympics was at London 2012, when Gagan Narang (men’s 10m air rifle) and Vijay Kumar (men’s 25m rapid fire pistol) won silver and bronze, respectively.
India did not win any shooting medals at Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020.
Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore won India’s first Olympic medal in shooting with a silver at Athens 2004 in the men’s double trap. Abhinav Bindra won India’s only gold medal in shooting in the men’s 10m air rifle at Beijing 2008.
Manu Bhaker will also compete in the women’s 25m pistol event, which is scheduled to start on Friday. She is the only athlete from the 21-member Indian shooting team participating in multiple individual events.
Prithviraj Tondaiman Finishes 21st in Men’s Trap India’s Prithviraj Tondaiman finished 21st in the men’s trap qualification round and did not progress to the six-man final from a field of 30 shooters. Tondaiman ended with an overall score of 118/125 across five rounds over two days.
In the women’s trap event, which began on Tuesday, Indian shooters Rajeshwari Kumari and Shreyasi Singh both scored 68, placing them in 21st and 22nd positions, respectively, after Day 1.
