PTI
Rio de Janeiro, August 10: India’s wait for their first medal after four fruitless days continued on day 5 in the Olympic Games with strong pistol shooting hope Jitu Rai crashing out of his pet 50m event without making the final. However, archer Bombayla Devi made it to the pre-quarterfinals, the only shining spot on a gloomy day in which judoka Avtar Singh also made a second-round exit.
Rai, winner of the gold medal in the same event in both the Commonwealth and Asian Games two years ago, showed rare signs of nerve going into the sixth and final series of 10 shots in the qualification round and was way off the mark to end up overall 12th with a total of 554 out of 600.
Fellow pistol shooter Prakash Nanjappa performed even more dismally to finish 25th out of 41 shooters with 547.
The only encouraging result came from the archery range where Bombayla Devi kept hopes alive with successive victories over Laurence Bauldaff of Austria and Chinese Taipei’s Lin Shih-Chi in the elimination phase.
Bombayla, who finished 24th in the ranking round, dished out a dominating show to get the better off Lin 6-2. Earlier the 31-year-old, in her third Olympics, had rallied her way to beat Austria’s Baldauff 6-2.
Bombayla, who had lost in the second round of women’s individual recurve event at the London Olympics, outclassed Lin 27-24, 27-24, 26-27, 28-26. Bombayla had four 10s in the match, supported by three 9s.
Bombayla also showed tremendous nerves in her match against Bauldaff as she bounced back after losing the first set to outclass the latter 24-27, 28-24, 27-23, 26-24.
Meanwhile Avtar lost to Refugee Olympic Team’s Misenga Popole in the second round.