India opened its medal account at the Youth Olympic Games with shooter Tushar Mane bagging a silver in the men’s 10m air rifle on the opening day of competitions here Sunday.
Mane, who qualified third for the final, shot 247.5 to win the silver while Grigorii Shamakov took the gold with 249.2. Serbia’s Aleksa Mitrovic won the bronze with a score of 227.9. It was a close fight among the three podium finishers till the end and Mane edged out Mitrovic for the silver medal by collecting 228.0 as against 227.9 of the Serbian shooter in the penultimate round.
But, the final round was not the best one for the Indian as he shot 9.6 and 9.99 while the eventual gold winner had 10.4 and 10.7.
In the qualification round held earlier in the day, Mane had shot 623.7 to finish third and qualify for the final.
In the men’s Hockey 5s competition, India crushed Bangladesh 10-0 in their opening match.
In swimming, Srihari Nataraj finished third in Heat 4 with a timing of 56.57s to qualify for the semifinals of the 100m backstroke.
India’s Tababi Devi Thangjam qualified for the final of the women’s 44kg judo competition with a 10-0 win over Ana Viktorija Puljiz of Croatia.
She had earlier defeated Bhutan’s Yangchen Wangmo 10-0 in the elimination Round of 16 before getting the better of Erza Muminoviq of Kosovo in the quarterfinals.
In women’s singles badminton, Jakka Vaishnavi Reddy defeated Elena Andreu of Spain 21-13, 21-6 in her opening Group F match.
Earlier, the Games opened in a street ceremony witnessed by over two lakh people. The innovative idea put in shade the dazzling fireworks and the glow in the Buenos Aires night sky. Invited to the one-of-its kind ceremony, the ‘Wild Boars’ from Thailand were hailed by the IOC president Thomas Bach.