Indian shooters Sarabjot Singh and Arjun Cheema missed out on the 10m air pistol final despite a strong effort at the Paris Olympics 2024.

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Chateauroux (France): Sarabjot Singh and Arjun Singh Cheema shone in patches but failed to make it to the men's 10m air pistol final as both air rifle mixed teams fell short of the qualifiers in a disappointing start for Indian shooters at the Olympics here on Saturday.

Sarabjot is ninth in the qualifiers with a total of 577 points while Arjun is 18th with 574 points.

Germany's Robin Walter, who shot a 577, shot one inside 10 (X) over Sarabjot's 16 to take the last (eighth) qualifying spot.

A 100 in the fourth series took the 22-year-old Sarabjot into the top three after a poor start but he failed to sustain the momentum and was dropped.

Cheema hit 10 perfect 10 shots from his last 10 shots, which took him to fourth place but he lost the plot after showing so much promise.

The 23-year-old Cheema accumulated 97 points from Series 2 (8, 10, 10, 10, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10) and is 10th on the list. He accumulated 96 points from Series 1. However, a poor 7 and Cheema's 9 dropped him out of the top eight.

Both Cheema and Sarabjot were part of the Indian team that won the 10m air pistol team gold medal at the Asian Games in Hangzhou last year.

Disappointment in mixed rifle competition

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Earlier in the day, Indian shooters were eliminated in the 10m air rifle mixed team qualification stage.

Ramita Jindal and Arjun Babuta finished sixth with a total of 628.7 points, while Elavenil Valarivan and Sandeep Singh secured the 12th position with 626.3 points.

The pair of Ramita and Babuta came close and finished fifth with three shots remaining but fell 1.0 points short of the medal round cut-off.

Babuta got off to a good start in the second relay and his sequence was 10.5, 10.6, 10.5, 10.9, while Ramita managed 10.2, 10.7, 10.3, 10.1 in the second series.

But, to enter the bronze medal round, they needed to do more than what they eventually achieved. Shooters from China, Korea and Kazakhstan dominated the qualification.

After qualifying as the top team for the finals, China eventually won its first gold medal of the Games at the event.

A team must finish in the top four to enter the medal matches.