A poor prone event consigned three-time Paralympics medallist Avani Lekhara to the fifth spot in the Women’s 50m rifle three position SH1 event and ended her campaign at the Paris Games, where she won a gold in the 10m Air Rifle SH1 event.
Avani was primed to repeat her Tokyo Paralympics feat with yet another double-medal performance on the cards after her first five kneeling shots put her in joint lead. But a 48.9 series quickly brought her down the standings. She finished her kneeling round with a score of 150.9 and was second at the time.
After the kneeling section was done, Avani seemed quite agitated during the changeover. Frustrated by that second series and knowing that the prone round, a segment where she has had some difficulty, was up next, the Indian would have known that the road ahead was uphill.
The Jaipur shooter, who has paraplegia, finds the prone event difficult because it requires her to lean forward and put both her elbows on the board provided, as was explained to The Indian Express by her coach Chandra Shekhar after the Tokyo Paralympics. Staying in that position for long periods, especially after two events, seemed to have taken its toll and Avani’s prone scores saw a drop.
While she hit 50.6, 49.9 and 50.1, all her competitors managed scores of 52 and above. That widened the gap between her and the top 4.
But the Indian still had 10 standing shots to bridge the gap. And usually, that’s where she makes up. But on Tuesday, that late burst never came.
After her first four shots, it seemed like Avani was there and thereabouts. But then she hit an 8.3, her lowest shot across the competition and qualification. That dropped her series to a poor 48.8 and essentially put her out of contention.
Her next series of 50.4, followed by a 10.6 elimination shot, kept her alive for a while but her final shot of 9.3 meant her event was over with a fifth position.
The standing event didn’t work out for her on Tuesday, even during qualification. A two-Paralympic gold medallist in the 10m Air Rifle SH1 event, Avani’s first series was a poor 92 out of a possible 100. She followed that up with series of 96, 96 and 97 to end with a total of 381 – a score that was not really in line with her usual scores in this section. In qualification, Avani had finished seventh with a total of 1159-59x.
