India at Paris Olympics Day 6: Swapnil Kusale bags third medal; campaign ends for Sindhu, Nikhat

New Delhi: The Indian contingent bagged its third medal on the sixth day of the Paris Olympics 2024 on Thursday. Shooter Swapnil Kusale claimed a bronze medal in the men’s 50m rifle three positions at the Chateurox Shooting Centre. The 28-year-old shooter scored a total of 451.4 to end up at third spot in the 8-men final event behind Ukraine’s Serhiy Kulish (461.3) and China’s Liu Yukun (463.6).

Kusale’s bronze is also the third medal from Indian shooters, adding to Manu Bhaker’s bronze medals in women’s 10m air pistol and mixed team 10m air pistol alongside Sarabjot Singh.

In the women’s 50m rifle three positions, Anjum Moudgil and Sift Kaur Samra failed to progress to the final around after finishing at 18th (584) and 31st (575) in the qualification round.

It was a day of upsets for Indian shuttlers with 22-year-old Lakshya Sen being the only player to progress in the knockout stage.

Two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu’s campaign ended after she went down to He Bijao in straight games 21-19 21-14 in a 56-minute Round of 16 match of women’s singles. This also ended Sindhu’s quest for a third Olympic medal after bagging silver in Rio 2016 Games and bronze in Tokyo 2020 Games.

World No.3 pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, who were heavy favourites to win a medal in men’s doubles, crashed out of Round of 16 after 21-13 14-21 16-21 defeat to Malaysian duo of Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik, squandering an early game advantage.

In an all-Indian pre-quarters of men’s singles, Lakshya Sen outsmarted higher-ranked shuttler HS Prannoy in straight games 21-12 21-6 to become the third Indian shuttler to make it to the quarterfinal stage. The 22-year-old shuttler from Almora joined the list of Parupalli Kashyap (2012 London Olympics) and Kidambi Srikanth (2016 Rio Olympics) to make the last-8 round of the quadrennial showpiece.

Nikhat Zareen’s medal hopes dashed

Two-time world champion Nikhat Zareen’s dream to win an Olympics medal was over after she lost to Wu Yu of China 0-5 in the women’s 50kg pre-quarterfinals at the North Paris Arena. She was among the best medal prospects of India, and the worst part is that boxing won’t be part of the next edition of Olympics at Los Angeles.

Indian racewalkers disappointed to start the athletics event at the Paris Games after Priyanka Goswami finished 41st in women’s 20km race walk clocking 1:39:55s in a competition where 45 participants were there. In the men’s 20km racewalk, Vikash Singh (1:22.36s) finished at 30th place and Paramjeet Singh Bisht (1:23.48s) came at the 37th spot among 49 participants. National record holder Akshdeep Singh couldn’t finish the race after he pulled out near the 6km mark.

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 The Indian contingent bagged its third medal on the sixth day of the Paris Olympics 2024 on Thursday. Shooter Swapnil Kusale claimed a bronze medal in the men’s 50m rifle three positions at the Chateurox Shooting Centre.  Other Sports Sports News: Latest Cricket News, Cricket Live Score, Sports Breaking News from Sports Today