Paris Olympics 2024: Swapnil Kusale wins bronze medal in Men's 50m Rifle 3 Position event

History was made for India at the Paris Olympic Games 2024, as shooter Swapnil Kusale won his maiden bronze medal in the final of the Men’s 50m air rifle 3 position event. Swapnil finished with a score of 451.4, behind second-positioned Serhiy Kulish of Ukraine (461.3) and gold medallist Yukun Liu (463.6). Swapnil’s bronze is the third medal for India in this edition of the Summer Games, with all coming in the Shooting discipline.

Indian shooters continue to bring home glory at the Paris Games. Days after Manu Bhaker and Sarabjot Singh won a bronze in the 10m air pistol mixed team event, another shooter in a different category, Swapnil, won India’s third medal, his first at the Olympics.

Swapnil began positively and placed sixth at the end of the kneeling stage, with his score reading 153.3. However, at the end of the second stage – the prone stage, he climbed up one place to fifth with a score of 310.1. At that time, a tiny margin of 0.6 separated him and third-placed Ukraine’s Kulish. 

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The tide changed during the final stage – the standing stage, where Kusale shot 51.1 to rise to the fourth position, just 0.4 away from the medal spot. 

Swapnil then clocked four shots of 10.5, 9.4, 9.9 and 10.0 to stay ahead of Czech Republic’s Jiri Privratsky and eventually finished third to win his maiden Olympic medal.

This win, however, makes up for the agony and disappointment India’s shooting contingent suffered in the past two editions (Tokyo 2020 and Rio 2016), where they failed to win a single medal. 

In contrast, in this edition in Paris, three shooters have bagged medals, creating history. 

Meanwhile, with only four Indian shooters (Rajyavardan Singh Rathore, Abhinav Bindra, Gagan Narang and Vijay Kumar) achieving the feat of winning an Olympic medal earlier, ace shooter Manu Bhaker created history in the women’s 10m air pistol by becoming the first female shooter from the country to unlock this feat.

(With inputs from agencies)