Indian shooter Arjun Babuta, who could not get through the qualification round in the 10 m air rifle mixed team event in the Paris Olympics, said that they missed by a small margin and have individual matches to look forward to.
Arjun Babuta and Ramita Jindal took part in the 10 m air rifle mixed team qualifiers. Only four teams out of 28 could qualify 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.
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 one point short of Germany, who finished at number four with 629.7.
Arjun stated that they gave their best.
"We did whatever we could, stratigised everything. We followed our routine and process. We missed it by a slight margin but we have individual matches to look out for and we are looking forward to that," Arjun told ANI.
"I did my best and I am happy with that. Looking at the scoreboard, we definitely feel disheartened as we missed by a small margin and talking about the shooting, I think we have been doing great in the past and will do great in the future as well. Today was not our best performance, scorewise. There was no lack of effort from us," Arjun said.
"We train in both slow and fast way" - Ramita Jindal
Ramita spoke about taking maximum shots in the minimum time and noted that they practice taking shots in both slow and fast way.
"We moment ourselves and try to be little faster. We train in both slow and fast way so it's not difficult to shoot 15 shots in just 10 minutes," Ramita said.
"I was not looking at the score, I try to give my best and stay in the moment. I was just focusing on the process," she added.
India shooting team head coach Suma Shirur also shared her thoughts on the players' performance.
"One of our teams secured the sixth position and missed the bronze medal play-off by one point. But we have full faith in our athletes and there are more events left, so they will do well in the coming days...Today is day one, I am sure that shooters have had their own learning and from here onwards, in the next competitions, they will make these corrections and play with confidence...," Suma Shirur said.
Germany will play 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.
