Indian shooter Arjun Babuta buckled under pressure and finished fourth in the men's 10m air rifle competition after coming close to winning a medal in his maiden Olympics in Paris on Monday.
Babuta shot a total of 208.4. A 9.5 in response to Croatia's Miran Maricic's 10.7 put paid to his hopes of finishing on the podium.
The 25-year-old Babuta started the final with a 10.7 and followed that with a 10.2. A third shot of 10.5 saw him take the fourth spot while a 10.4 in his fourth attempt lifted him to the third spot. He finished the first series with a solid 10.6.
He started the second series with a 10.7, followed that with a 10.5 and shot a near-perfect 10.8 in the second shot of the first elimination series. That effort propelled him into the second place while reducing the deficit between him and world record holder Chinese Sheng Lihao to 0.1 point.
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However, he could not sustain the form and missed out on the medal. Lihao claimed the top honours in this event with an Olympic record of 252.2. Sweden's Victor Lindgren took the silver medal with a score of 251.4, followed by Croatia's Miran Maricic (230) at the third spot.
Arjun Babuta finished 7th to sneak into the final:
Meanwhile, the 25-year-old achieved scores of 105.7, 104.9, 105.5, 105.4, 104.0, and 104.6, thereby achieving an aggregate of 630.1 to reach the final of the category.
Babuta's defeat in the singles has come after he and Ramita Jindal also missed out on a final berth in the mixed doubles narrowly after finishing 6th.
(With inputs from PTI)
