Rio 2016: Heena off target, Sandhu disappoints

Indian shooters Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Kynan Chenai were placed at the 17th and 19th spots respectively, after the first day of the men’s trap qualification event at the Olympic Games here on Sunday.

Sandhu and Chenai came up with scores of 68 and 67 respectively in the three rounds after a total of 33 shooters participated on Day 1 with each athlete taking 75 shots each.

Sandhu scored 23, 23, 22, while Chenai posted 22, 23, 22 in the three rounds at the shotgun range.

The duo will return on Monday for the second day of the qualification where there will be two more rounds of 25 targets each.

Earlier, Heena Sindhu crashed out of the 10m air pistol women’s qualification round.

Heena was way behind in the qualifying round, finishing 14th in the field of 44 shooters. The 26-year-old 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games silver medallist shot an overall 380, which included 13x.

On Saturday, country’s biggest medal hope Jitu Rai got a wake-up call when he finished eighth (78.7) in the 10m air pistol finals.

The 28-year-old Armyman was not his usual self as he shot 580, a poor score by his standard, to be ranked sixth in qualification round, and he continued to struggle in the final.

On Saturday night, weightlifter Saikhom Mirabai Chanu put up a disappointing performance as she could not get an overall total in women’s 48kg after failing to lift the weight in any of her three attempts in clean & jerk section.