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Kusale won bronze in the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions event after finishing with a score of 451.4 in the final on Thursday to stretch India’s medal haul in the Paris Games to three — all of them coming from the shooting contingent. read more
 "Kusale wins bronze on Day 6 but key medal contenders including Sindhu, Samra bow out")
Swapnil Kusale with the bonze medal he won in 50m rifle 3 positions event at Paris Olympics 2024. Reuters
Swapnil Kusale and Lakshya Sen lit up what was otherwise a dull Thursday for the Indian contingent at the Paris Olympics with the former adding to the shooting team’s medal collection.
Paris Olympics: News, schedule, medals tally and more
Kusale won bronze in the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions event after finishing with a score of 451.4 in the final on Thursday to stretch India’s medal haul in the Paris Games to three — all of them coming from the shooting contingent.
Shuttler Lakshya, on the other hand, stormed into the men’s singles quarter-finals in his maiden Olympic campaign with a dominant 21-12, 21-6 victory over HS Prannoy in an all-Indian Round of 16 clash.
Day 6 of the Paris Games was otherwise was a disappointing one for the Indian contingent as several medal contenders crashed out, including PV Sindhu and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty in badminton, Sift Kaur Samra in shooting and Nikhat Zareen in boxing.
As It Happened | India at Paris Olympics, Day 6
Kusale, meanwhile, continued the Indian shooting team’s fairytale run in Paris with a heroic display on Thursday. The 28-year-old shooter from Maharashtra had finished seventh in the qualifying round on Wednesday, and slowly made his way up the table in the final.
It was during the final round in which shooters were required to fire while standing when Kusale managed to breach into the top three, beating Czech Republic’s Jiri Privratsky and Norway’s Jon-Hermann Hegg — who had been among the top three for a majority of the final — to the medal positions.
Read | Swapnil Kusale reveals what helped him win 50m Rifle 3 positions bronze
China’s Yukun Liu took home the gold with a final score of 463.6 while Ukraine’s Serhiy Kulish won silver with a final score of 461.3.
Kusale’s bronze is the third medal by an Indian rifle shooter after Abhinav Bindra’s 10m air rifle gold in Beijing 2008 and Gagan Narang’s bronze in the same event in London 2012. It’s also the first time India have won more than two medals in the same sport in the same edition of the Olympics.
Key medal hopes crash out
While Kusale took home the bronze, Sift Kaur Samra produced an underwhelming display in the women’s 50m rifle 3 positions event, finishing at the 31st position in the qualifying round with a final score of 575.
Samra was among the key medal hopes heading into the Paris Olympics given she was the current holder of the world record in the event, having achieved it while winning gold in last year’s Asian Games in Hangzhou.
Compatriot Anjum Moudgil fared slightly better than her, finishing at the 18th spot with a final score of 584.
Equally disappointing was the manner in which Sindhu and Satwik-Chirag’s campaigns came to an end in the women’s singles and men’s doubles events in badminton.
Sindhu suffered a 19-21, 14-21 defeat at the hands of China’s He Bing Jiao, the player she had defeated exactly three years ago in the bronze medal playoff match in Tokyo to win her second consecutive Olympic medal.
Having won silver on Olympic debut in Rio 2016 and following it up with a bronze five years later, Sindhu was hoping to become the first Indian athlete to win a hat-trick of medals.
After breezing through the group stage with dominant victories, the 29-year-old had initially put up a tough fight against the Chinese shuttler, ranked four places above her at ninth in the world rankings. However, while Bing Jiao pipped Sindhu to clinch Game 1, she was a different beast in the second game as she had seven match points in hand before sealing her victory.
Joining Sindhu in exiting from the Paris 2024 badminton event was the men’s doubles pair of Satwik and Chirag, who were the most celebrated Indian shuttlers in recent months after adding a historic Asian Games gold to a World Championships bronze. The two were widely backed to become the first Indian men to win an Olympic medal in badminton.
A spot in the semi-finals appeared all that closer after Satwik and Chirag had won the first game against Malaysia’s Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik 21-13 in their quarter-final clash on Thursday.
Aaron and Soh, however, bounced back in style in the following game, sealing it 21-14 to take the match to a decider. The Indian pair had the advantage in Game 3, with the score reading 11-9 in their favour at the interval.
Aaron and Soh, however, brought their ‘A’ game forward when it mattered the most and won 10 of the last 12 points in the decider to reach the Olympic semi-finals for the second consecutive time.
Among the other medal contenders crashing out was star boxer and 2022 World Championships gold medallist Nikhat Zareen, who suffered a unanimous 5-0 defeat at the hands of China’s Wu Yu the women’s flyweight (50kg) Round of 16.
India suffer first defeat in men’s hockey
The Harmanpreet Singh-led Indian men’s hockey team, meanwhile, suffered their first defeat of their Paris 2024 campaign on Thursday with a 1-2 loss at the hands of defending Olympic champions Belgium.
The Tokyo 2020 bronze medallists had already qualified for the quarter-finals after beating New Zealand (3-2) and Ireland (2-0) and holding Rio 2016 gold medallists Argentina to a 1-1 draw.
Belgium were the hot favourites entering the Pool B clash after thrashing Australia 6-2. India, however, raised hope of pulling off an unlikely victory after breaking the deadlock in the second quarter. Abhishek put the Indians in the lead by scoring off a Penalty Corner in the 18th minute.
The Belgians, however, would bounce back with two goals in the third quarter via Thibeau Stockbroekx (33rd) and John-John Dohmen (44th) to extend their unbeaten run in the Paris Olympics so far.
In other events, archer Pravin Jadhav suffered a 0-6 defeat against Chinas Kao Wenchao in the men’s individual 1/32 elimination round.
Indian athletes also disappointed in the race walk events, with Vikash Singh (1:22.36) and Paramjeet Singh (1:23.48) finishing 30th and 37th respectively in the men’s category, with Akshdeep Singh not finishing the race.
In the women’s race, Priyanka Goswami finished 41st with a timing of 1:39.55.
In golf, Shubhankar Sharma and Gaganjeet Bhullar were tied-29th (one-under 70) and tied-56th (four-above 75) after the first round of the Men’s Individual Finals.
As for sailing, Vishnu Saravanan finished 10th and 34th respectively in the first two races in men’s dinghy, and is currently sitting at the 25th position overall with eight more rounds to go.
Nethra Kumanan, meanwhile, finds herself at the sixth spot after just one race in women’s dinghy, with the second race rescheduled for Friday.
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English (US) ·