Air Rifle Mixed Team: They needed just one point to seal a bronze medal but India’s Ramita Jindal and Divyansh Panwar could not win the match in four attempts in the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team competitions, here on Tuesday.
The young Indian pair suffered a heartbreak defeat to a pair from the Republic of Korea in the bronze medal match in the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team event in the Asian Games shooting competitions in Hangzhou on Tuesday.
“There was a little bit of pressure, there were ties also. Once the scores cross 16, anybody can win and it is a matter of luck. The start was good, so also in the middle. I had a few bad shots but Ramita was superb and she made up for those bad shots,” Divyansh said after the match.
Ramita and Divyansh had a handy lead in the initial as they won the first eight points. The Korean pair of Hajun Park and Eunseo Lee fought back to make it 7-9 for them. Ramita and Divyansh opened up a gap again at 11-9, 13-11 and 15-13 but could not go on and close it out.
The Koreans eventually pipped the Indians to the post, winning the match-off for third place 20-18 at the 10m shooting range at the Fuyang Yinhu Sports Centre.
The Indians lost the match by the narrowest margin 0.2 points and had to be satisfied for the fourth spot after they had fought through the qualifying to finish among the top six and qualify for one of the two bronze medal matches.
The Indian duo had taken an 8-0 lead by winning the first four series of two shots each in the two-shot duels. But the Koreans fought back and slowly crawled onto them and levelled scores at 15-15. At this stage, the Indians needed just one point to claim the medal as the first team to reach 16 points wins the match.
The two teams went neck-and-neck till 18-18 when the Koreans won the two-shot series 21.5 to 21.3 and grabbed two points which sealed their victory.
The 19-year-old Ramita, participating in only her second senior-level event, shot brilliantly, getting all 10+ scores. But two below-par shots by Divyansh — a 9.9 and 9.8 put paid to their chances as they lost the match-off and missed winning another medal for India in the Asian Games shooting competitions.
Ramita has already won two medals — a silver in the women’s 10m Air Rifle Team competition and a bronze in the 10m Air Rifle Individual event on Sunday while Divyansh Panwar helped the Men’s team bag the country’s first gold medal in the 10m Air Rifle Team competition on Monday.
The Chinese pair of Yuting Huang and Lihao Sheng defeated Uzbekistan’s Mukhtasar Tokhirova and Javokhir Sokhirov in the final to win the gold medal. Kazakhstan won the other bronze medal by beating Iran.
“I have played in so many finals and there was no pressure (when there were four ties before the end) because I have been into this kind of situation many times. It was not our day,” said Divyansh.
