Young shooter Manu Bhaker on Tuesday created history at the Paris Olympics by becoming the first Indian since independence to win two medals in the same Olympics. Along with Sarabjot Singh, he won India’s second bronze medal in the Paris Games. The Indian hockey team also continued its unbeaten campaign and in badminton, the pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty topped their group. But the country faced disappointment in boxing while archers had a mixed day.

Shooting

The Indian pair defeated Korea’s Lee Wonho and O A Jin 16-10 in the 10m air pistol mixed team category to give the country its second medal. Earlier, Manu had won bronze in the women’s 10 meter air pistol event. In the Tokyo Olympics, Manu could not qualify for the finals due to a malfunction in her pistol, but by winning two medals here, she healed every wound. British-born Indian player Norman Pritchard won silver medals in 200 meter sprint and 200 meter hurdles in the 1900 Olympics, but that achievement was achieved before independence.

Manu will now compete for 25m women’s pistol qualification on August 2 and she also has a chance to win her third medal. Sarabjot had finished ninth in qualification in the 10m air pistol individual category with a score of 577 and could not make it to the finals. Manu and Sarabjot had made it to the bronze medal match by scoring 580 in the qualification round. At the same time, the performance in Indian trap shooting was disappointing with Prithviraj Tondaiman finishing 21st in the qualification while in the women’s category, Rajeshwari Kumari and Shreyasi Singh finished 21st after three rounds of qualification on the first day while Shreyasi finished 22nd. Both will play two more rounds of qualification on Wednesday.

Hockey

Indian men’s hockey team won 2-0 over Ireland with the help of two goals by captain Harmanpreet Singh and excellent performance by goalkeeper PR Sreejesh. Captain Harmanpreet Singh scored the first goal on a penalty stroke in the 11th minute and the second goal on a penalty corner in the 19th minute.

In the first match, Harmanpreet scored the winning goal on a penalty stroke in the 59th minute in the 3-2 victory over New Zealand. On Monday, against Rio Olympic champion Argentina, he saved India from defeat by converting a penalty corner in the 59th minute and drew the match 1-1. India will now face Australia on August 2.

badminton

Asian Games champions and medal contenders Indian pair of Rankireddy and Shetty defeated Indonesian pair of Muhammad Rian Ardiyanto and Fajar Alfian in straight games to top Group C in the badminton men’s doubles event of Paris Olympics, while Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto’s campaign in women’s doubles ended with her third consecutive defeat.

World number five Indian pair of Satwik and Chirag defeated world number seven pair of Ardianto and Alfiyan 21-13, 21-13 in 40 minutes. Both these pairs had already made it to the last eight and this match decided the top team in the group. The Indian pair won all their matches in the group. The world number 18 pair of Ashwini and Tanisha had to face defeat against the world number 26 pair of Mapusa and Yu 15-21, 10-21 in 38 minutes.

archery

Indian archer Bhajan Kaur reached the last 16 stage of the Olympics with an impressive 6-0 win over Poland’s Wioletta Myszor in the women’s singles category. Bhajan avenged Ankita Bhakat’s defeat by defeating Mysore in the last 32 round. This archer from Poland had earlier defeated Ankita 6-4 in the last 64 stage match. Bhajan continued his form against Violeta and recorded a one-sided win after defeating Indonesia’s Saifa Nurfifa Kamal 7-3 in his opening match of the day.

boxing

Veteran boxer Amit Panghal crashed out in the round of 16 of the 51kg category after losing 1-4 to African Games champion and third seed Patrick Chinyemba of Zambia. At the same time, debutante female boxer Jasmine Lamboria was eliminated after losing in the 57 kg category. 22-year-old Jasmine from Bhiwani got the toughest draw among Indian boxers. This young boxer had slipped from the 60 kg weight category to the 57 kg category just before the final qualifiers for the Olympics. This tall young boxer could not land an accurate punch and lost to the more experienced Nesty Patascio.

sailing

Balraj Panwar, India’s lone representative in sailing at the Paris Olympics, finished fifth in his heat race in the men’s single scull and will now play for the 13th to 24th positions. Panwar, 25, clocked seven minutes and 5.10 seconds in the fourth heat of the quarterfinals. That semi-final C. Slipped to D, which means A players will move from 13th to 24th position.