Rio Olympics: Shooters Sandhu, Chenai Keep Hopes Alive, Heena Exits

Indian shooters continued to disappoint at the 2016 Rio Olympics as Heena Sidhu failed to qualify for the women's 10-metre air pistol final at the Olympic Shooting Centre in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday.

Later in the day, shotgun specialists Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Kynan Chenai finished 17th and 19th respectively after the first day of men's trap qualification.

Heena shot a cumulative of 380 points to finish 14th out of a total 44 participants. She shot scores of 94, 95, 96, 95 in her four rounds of shooting where Russian Vitalina Batsarashkina topped the charts with 390 points.

Another Russian Ekaterina Korshunova finished second with 387 points while Greece's Anna Korakaki also ended with the same number of points but less two less bull's eyes.

Heena, who has won gold medals at World Cups and Commonwealth Games, could not replicate her performance at the multisport extravaganza in the Brazilian metropolis.

Later, Sandhu and Chenai came up with scores of 68 and 67 respectively in 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 in the Olympic Shooting Centre.

After the completion of the first round, Sandhu was placed 14th while Chenai lied at 28th spot. The former improved a place with a score of 46 in the second round while Chenai too rose to 16th spot with a score of 45.

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

At the top, Fabbrizi Massimo of Italy was the only shooter to produce a record score of 75 while Great Britain's Ling Edward and Italian Pellielo Giovanni were placed in second and third spots with 73 each.

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(With PTI inputs)