Paris Paralympics 2024: Avani Lekhara finishes fifth in women’s 50m rifle 3 positions final

Top Indian shooter Avani Lekhara missed out on a second medal at the ongoing Paralympic Games and finished fifth despite giving a tough fight in the final of the women’s 50m rifle 3 positions SH1 event on Tuesday. 22-year-old Avani, who is paralysed below the waist due to a car accident at the age of 11, shot a total of 420.6 points in the three stages of kneeling, lying down and standing in a world-class field of eight women. Natascha Hiltrop of Germany won the gold with a total of 456.5 points, Veronika Vdovicova of Slovakia won the silver with 456.1 points and China’s Zhang won the bronze with 446.0 points.

Avani led for some time in the final but slipped to sixth place at the end of the prone stage, which is not her strong area as she struggles with the position.

The Indian was doing well in the standing stage, which is her strong point, but then an unexpected score of 8.3 did not help her.

The SH1 class is designated for athletes with a lower limb disability to compete in rifle shooting events. Shooters here can hold their gun without difficulty and shoot standing or sitting (in a wheelchair or chair).

Earlier, Avni had entered the finals of the competition by finishing seventh in the qualification. Avni had scored a total of 1159 points in the qualification.

However, Mona Agarwal, the other Indian shooter participating in this event, could not cross the qualification hurdle and finished 13th. Mona scored 1147 points.

The top eight shooters in the qualification advanced to the final.

In the final, Avni had 150.9 points at the end of the kneeling round to finish second, while Chinese shooter Cuiping Zhang (151.5) topped the prone round.

However, things changed drastically for Avani in prone, where a couple of sub-10 scores, including a 9.2, put her in sixth place.

There is no doubt that standing positions is her strong area, but by the time she reached the final stages of the final, the gap with the top-ranked women had widened considerably.

She scored 10.6 to avoid elimination ahead of Iryna Shetnik.

Nonetheless, Avni will return home after another stellar campaign, during which she became the first Indian woman to win two gold medals at the Paralympics.

She won the top prize in the women’s 10m air rifle standing SH1 shooting event, successfully defending her title won in Tokyo three years ago with a new Games record score of 249.7 in the final.