The Indian women's archery team progressed to the quarter-finals by edging out Colombia 5-3, but experienced pistol shooter Heena Sidhu fell by the wayside on day two of the Rio Olympics on Sunday.
The Indian trio of Laishram Bombayla Devi, Laxmirani Majhi and Deepika Kumari made the quarters of the recurve event. This was the first time that the women archers had advanced to round two after their poor display in London four years ago when Denmark ousted them in round one. Bombayla and Deepika were part of that team. The trio will face Russian Federation in the quarter-final later on Sunday.
However, the Indian shooters' unimpressive run continued unabated with Heena crashing out of the women's 10m air pistol qualification round by finishing way behind the leaders in the 14th position out of 44 competitors.
The 26-year-old 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games silver medallist shot an overall 380, which included 13x.
Heena, who had finished 12th in her maiden Olympics in 2012 London Games, failed to recover from a poor start and became the fourth shooter to be eliminated in day two of the competition.
The cut for the eight finalists was applied at 384 with seven closest to the centre circle, which was shot by Sonia Franquet of Spain. Russia's Vitalina Batsarashkina topped the qualification round with a score of 390, including 14x.
Heena will now try to make amends when she competes in the 25m pistol event, scheduled to be held on August 9.
