Rubina Francis
Rubina Francis shot down India’s fourth medal from the shooting range, showing tremendous calm and composure in a high-class field to clinch a bronze in the women’s 10m air pistol SH1 event in the Paris Paralympics on Saturday.
Competing in a top-class field consisting of the defending champion and world record holder among others, the 25-year-old Rubina held her own to score a total of 211.1 for a third-place finish in the eight-woman final.
She had qualified for the final at seventh spot in the qualification round earlier in the day. Rubina’s medal was India’s fourth in shooting and fifth overall at the Paris Paralympics. She is India’s first woman pistol shooter to win a Paralympics medal.
Nitesh, Sukant in semis
Indian shuttlers Nitesh Kumar and Sukant Kadam qualified for the semifinals of men’s singles SL3 and SL4 categories respectively after recording straight-game wins in their last group matches.
Sarita wins, Sheetal out
India endured mixed luck from the archery arena as armless wonder Sheetal Devi suffered an exit, while Sarita Kumari put up dominating show to storm into the quarterfinals of the compound women’s open category.
First, it was the ninth seed Sarita downed Italy’s Eleonora Sarti 141-135 in a one-sided affair. Later, Sheetal endured a blip in the second end where she shot the 7-point red ring to go down to Tokyo silver medalist Mariana Zuniga of Chile 137-138 in the pre-quarters.