Equestrian Fouaad Mirza on Monday finished a creditable 23rd in eventing after he became the first Indian to reach the final of the event here on Monday.

Mirza and his equine Seigneur Medicott sneaked into the top-25 in the morning to make the jumping finals and become the first Indian to do so. In the final, Mirza incurred 12.40 penalty points for an overall 59.60 that included the points from the three rounds of qualifying events — dressage, cross country and jumping.

It was a creditable performance for the 29-year-old Bangalore rider, who was the first Indian equestrian to qualify for the Olympics since Imtiaz Anees in Sydney 2000. Late Wing Commander IJ Lamba (Atlanta 1996) was the only other Indian to have represented the country in equestrian at the Olympics.

Germany’s Julia Krajewski won the gold in the event, making her the first female Olympic champion in eventing history. Great Britain’s Tom McEwen and Australia’s Andrew Hoy took silver and bronze in the individual events respectively.

Others in action

Shooters Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar and Sanjeev Rajput failed to qualify for the finals of the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions event. Tomar finished 21st in the qualification while Rajput was placed in 32nd position as the Indian shooting team returned without a medal for the second straight time at the Olympics.

Tomar shot a total of 1167 with 63 inner 10s in the qualification, while Rajput aggregated 1157 with 55 inner 10s. The cut was made at 1176.

In athletics, sprinter Dutee Chand ran her season’s best in 200m but that was not enough to progress to the semi-finals.

The 25-year-old Dutee, who had also crashed out of her pet event 100m in the first round, clocked 23.85 seconds to finish seventh and last in Heat 4. She finished 38th overall out of 41 competitors.

Sonam’s challenge

Young wrestler Sonam Malik was on Monday placed in the challenging bottom half of the women’s 62kg draw, where she will open her Olympics campaign against Asian silver medallist Bolortuya Khurelkhuu from Mongolia. The 19-year-old will be the sole Indian wrestler in action on Tuesday.

If Sonam manages to cross the first hurdle, she will most likely find 2018 world champion Taybe Mustafa Yusein from Bulgaria in the quarter finals.