Tokyo:Tokyo: Indian shooters endured a poor start at the Tokyo Olympics with first-timer Elavenil Valarivan and Apurvi Chandela failing to qualify for the finals of the women's 10m air rifle event here on Saturday.
Making her Olympic debut, world number one Elavenil finished 16th in the qualifications after shooting 626.5 over six series of 10 shots each, while the more experienced Apurvi, who is also the finals world record holder in the event, settled for the 36th place after aggregating 621.9 at the Asaka Range.
The Indians were off to a decent start and even as Apurvi slipped after a disastrous second series, with two scores of 9.5 and 9.9, the 21-year-old Elavenil tried to remain in the reckoning with a fine performance in the third series, including shooting a perfect 10.9.
However, Elavenil, a World Cup Final gold-medallist, could not maintain the same form and a couple of 9s in the fifth and sixth series pushed her further down.
Apurvi, 28, who has won two World Cup gold medals during her excellent run in 2019, had finished 34th at the 2016 Rio Games.
Norway's Jeanette Hegg Duestad topped the qualification with an Olympic qualification record score of 632.9 but missed the world record by 1.1, while South Korea's Heemoon Park was second with 631.7. American challenger Mary Carolyn Tucker finished third with 631.4.
In a very competitive field consistently producing high scores, Elavenil fell two points short of the total shot by Russian Olympic Committee's Anastasiia Galashina, who grabbed the eighth and last spot in the final by setting the cut-off at 628.6.