Paris (France): India's Paris Olympics campaign in rowing was off to a shaky start as Balraj Panwar finished at fourth spot in the first heat race on Saturday.
Balraj clocked timings of 7:07:11 minutes to finish at number four out of six competitors in his heat. Only three players from each heat race could make it to the quarterfinals directly. However, all hope is not lost for Balraj, as he is still eligible to compete in the repechage round that will take place on Sunday.
In heat one, New Zealand's Thomas Mackintosh finished at number one spot with timings of 6:55.92 minutes. Greece rower Stefanos Ntouskos earned second place with a time of 7:01.79 minutes. The third place was bagged by Egypt's Abdelkhalek El-Banna, who clocked 7:05.06 minutes. India has fielded only one rower in the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Back in April, Panwar secured India's first Paris Olympics quota in rowing by finishing third in the men's single scull event of the Asian Olympic qualifiers in Chungju, South Korea.
India's campaign in shooting in the Paris 2024 Olympics started with disappointment as two Indian teams in action during the qualification round in the 10 m air rifle mixed team events failed to make it to the medal matches on Saturday.
Two Indian pairs, Elavenil Valarivan and Sandeep Singh and Arjun Babuta and Ramita Jindal, took part in the 10 m air rifle mixed teams qualifiers. Only four teams out of 28 had the privilege of qualifying further for the knockout stages, i.e., a gold medal match for the top two teams and a bronze medal match for teams ranked third and fourth. India could not make it to the final four.
#TOPSchemeAthlete and star rower @balraj_rowing finishes 4th with a timing of 07:07.11 on Day 1 of #ParisOlympics2024 in Men’s Single Sculls Heats.
— SAI Media (@Media_SAI) July 27, 2024
He progresses to the Repechage round scheduled tomorrow 1:05 PM IST onwards.
Let’s #Cheer4Bharat and let’s support Balraj 👍🏻 pic.twitter.com/rWVHOzxJV0
Ramita and Arjun finished in sixth place with a total of 628.7 points after three series, out of which Ramita managed 314.5 and Arjun got 314.2 points. They fell just one point short of Germany, who finished at number four with 629.7.
On the other hand, the pair of Elavenil and Sandeep finished in 12th place with 626.3 points, with Elavenil scoring 312.6 points and Sandeep got 313.7 points.
Germany will be playing in the bronze medal match with Kazakhstan, whose team consisting of Le Alexandra and Satpayev Islam finished at number three with 630.8 points in three series.
The gold medal match will be between the defending champions, China, who finished at the top spot with 632.2 points and South Korea, who finished at number two with 631.4 points.
However, there is still hope for India as shooting action will continue with 10 m air pistol qualification rounds for men's and women's categories, which will feature stars like Sarabjot Singh, Arjun Cheema, Manu Bhaker and Rhythm Sangwan in action. These will take place at 2 pm and 4 pm respectively.
