Making an Olympic final is no child’s play, and by progressing to the bronze medal match in skeet mixed team on Monday, Anant Jeet Singh Naruka and Maheshwari Chauhan proved their credentials as quality shotgun shooters.
Paris was their maiden outing on a stage as big as the Olympic Games, and among the other lessons the duo got at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre was that athletes chart their destiny, rather than leaving their fate in the opponents’ hands.
Anant and Maheshwari paid the price of missing birds early on, which left them in a situation where the Chinese duo of Jianlin Lyu and Yiting Jiang had to miss at least one of the targets in the final series to allow the Indians to force a shoot-off.
Neither shooter missed, and India’s hopes of a fourth medal evaporated as they lost 44-43 on the concluding day of the shooting competition.
Anant and Maheshwari ran their opponents close, but Jianlin, gold medallist from the Baku World Cup earlier this year, and Yiting, the top name in women’s skeet at the Cairo World Cup last year, made the difference by stepping up with flawless marksmanship when it was required of them.
By missing out on bronze, India posted their third 4th place finish after Manu Bhaker (women’s 25m pistol) and Arjun Babuta (men’s 10m air rifle).
It was redemption for the Chinese duo as Jianlin had finished 17th in the men’s individual event, and Yiting 10th among women.
For Anant and Maheshwari, the wait for Olympic glory got longer, but they will come back wiser from the lessons in the final and the individual events earlier on, in which Anant had finished 24th, Maheshwari 14th.
The gold medal match was keenly contested as well, and Italy maintained their supremacy in the event by edging out the US 45-44.
It was a battle of experienced Olympians as Diana Bacosi and Gabriele Rossetti, champions at Rio, fought it out with the celebrated Vincent Hancock, who added to his three Olympic golds with one more gold in Paris, and his American teammate Jewell Austen Smith, a Tokyo Olympian and women’s bronze medallist in Paris.
In qualification too, the Italians who showed their class by equalling the qualification world record with a 149, to finish ahead of the US (148).
Recovering from a slow start, India came back well to tie with China at 146, but the latter finished third after prevailing in the shoot-off.
Paris done; the shooters will return with mixed feelings. The three bronze medals are an Olympic high, surpassing the London haul, but there will also be regret that the tally could have been much higher, and the medals of a better colour.
Introspection will happen in a way that when the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics come calling, the Indian shooters will be ready to startle the sporting world with their feats.