25m Pistol shooters to fire first as inaugural OSTs set to get underway

The 25m Pistol shooters will fire first as the inaugural Olympic Selection Trials (OSTs) 1&2 for Rifle and Pistol is all set to get underway at the Karni Singh Shooting range, here.

Friday will see the qualification rounds for both the women’s 25m Pistol and the men’s 25m rapid-fire pistol (RFP) take up the entire day beginning at 9.00 am IST with the women’s Precision Stage.

Five shooters each have made the cut in each event, as they have in all the eight events. In the women’s sport pistol (25m) Manu Bhaker will take the favourites tag being the only Olympian in the field as well as having the advantage of having one of the two quotas in the event, which will give her a bump of two points in the final average score.

She will be challenged by the second quota winner Rhythm Sangwan, Esha Singh, Abhidnya Ashok Patil and Simranpreet Kaur Brar for the top spots in both the OSTs.

In the men’s RFP, Anish Bhanwala will be the one to beat given he has established himself as the undisputed number one in the discipline over this Olympic cycle. He also has the quota place as has good friend Vijayveer Sidhu. Adarsh Singh, Bhavesh Shekhawat and Ankur Goel will challenge both those for one of the two Paris spots.

OSTs scoring rules:

25m Pistol (Men & Women), 50M Rifle 3 Positions (Men & Women)

Top 2 FAS (Final Average Score) out of 5 qualify

Top 2 FAS= Top 2 Averages of Best of 3 OSTs (out of 4)

Best of 3 OSTs = (Score OST 1 + Score OST 2 + Score OST 3) / 3

Score OST= Qualification Score+ podium points

Quota points added to FAS= 2

Podium Points added to Qualification Score= 0.6 (1st), 0.4 (2nd), 0.2 (3rd)

10m Air Pistol (Men & Women) & 10M Air Rifle (Men & Women)

Top 2 FAS (Final Average Score) out of 5 qualify

Top 2 FAS= Top 2 Averages of Best of 3 OSTs (out of 4)

Best of 3 OSTs = (Score OST 1 + Score OST 2 + Score OST 3) / 3

Score OST= Qualification Score+ podium points

Quota points added to FAS= 1

Podium Points added to Qualification Score= 0.3 (1st), 0.2 (2nd), 0.1 (3rd)