2024-09-16 15:26:21
Chateauroux: India’s experienced para shooter Avani Lekhara finished fifth in the final of the women’s 50m rifle three positions SH1 event at the Paris Paralympics here on Tuesday. The 22-year-old shooter from Rajasthan has been dependent on a wheelchair since the age of 11 due to paralysis below the waist in a car accident. She finished her campaign fifth with 420.6 points in the eight-player final in kneeling, prone and standing. Germany’s Natascha Hiltrop won the gold medal with a total of 456.5, Slovakia’s Veronika Vadovicova won the silver with 456.1 and China’s Zhang won the bronze with 446.0.
Avni had a good start but slipped to sixth place after the prone stage. Prone shooting is not her strong point due to her dependence on a wheelchair. She then tried to make a comeback in the standing stage but fell behind after shooting a shot of 8.3 points. In SH1, players can hold the gun without any difficulty and can aim while standing or sitting.
Earlier in the qualifying round, Avni qualified for the finals by finishing seventh with a score of 1159 in kneeling, prone and standing. In this event, another Indian shooter Mona Agarwal was eliminated from the title match by finishing 13th in the qualifying. Mona scored a total of 1147. The shooters who finished in the top eight positions in the qualification made it to the finals.
Avni was in second place with 150.9 points at the end of the kneeling phase of the final. But things changed quickly in the prone phase. Some of her shots were less than 10 points, causing her to slip to sixth place. She made a strong comeback in the standings, but lagged behind the top shooters in the table by a huge margin. She managed to avoid elimination in sixth place after shooting 10.6, but could not extend her campaign beyond fifth place. Avni, however, will return home after another excellent campaign at the Paralympics. She became the first Indian woman to win two gold medals during this period.