Ghulam Mustafa Bashir falls short despite fine effort at Paris Olympics

Pakistan's Ghulam Mustafa Bashir improved on his previous Olympic Games outing with a score of 581-19x but failed to qualify for the final of the 25m Rapid Fire men's event at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre on Sunday afternoon.

The Okara native finished  15th in the qualification. His task was to end the day in sixth place in order to progress into the final that is to be played on Monday.

The qualification had two stages, in the first stage the former Navy sailor scored 292-12x with the second eight score of 98, the second six scoring 99, and the second four score of 95.

Later in the afternoon he was required to improve on his points but ended up with scores of 967 in seconds eight, 97 in the second six, and 95 in seconds four.

Till the first quarter of the first stage, he was among the top four and had a chance, but soon he found himself struggling.

During the break between the first stage and the second, according to an official with the shooting squad, Bahsir was relaxed and focused on his game.

Pakistan was fielding three shooters, including Bashir, Gulfam Joseph, and Kishmala Talat, who became the first Pakistani woman to qualify for the Games directly.

This was also Bashir's third outing at the Olympics, his previous appearances were in Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020. In Rio he scored 571, in Tokyo he improved with 579 and in Paris ended with 581-19x.

He was four points short of finishing in sixth place. Germany's Florian Peter completed the line-up for the top six who will play in the final.

China's Yuehong Li topped the qualification round with a score of 588-3-x, compatriot Vinjie Wang was second with 587-24x, Ukraine's Pavlo Korostylov, South Korea's Yeonjae Cho, Italian Massimo Spinella were third, fourth, and fifth, respectively.

Before the event, Bashir had elaborated on how shooting is still an upcoming sport in Pakistan.

"It is still a developing sport really, but the great thing is that it is a sport that allows people to compete even later in life, like one does not need to be very young, the shooter who wants to compete on an elite level can compete even in later years, so that is a good thing," Bashir told this correspondent.

He added that Pakistan needs to improve but the results will start to show slowly.

Pakistan is now left with only one event at the Olympics. Arshad Nadeem will take the stage on August 6 at Stade de France for the javelin throw qualification round.

Pakistan was fielding seven athletes in the Paris Olympics.