Shooting is not an obviously entertaining sport, the air rifle even less so. At least trap, with the boom of the shotgun being fired, the smoke colourfully hanging in the air for a few seconds after the shot hits the clay target, and the backdrop of the green outdoors make for a great experience.

Air rifle, in contrast, is contested indoors, with the qualification room holding the hush of a hospital waiting room. Contestants line up, as the women do this morning to vie for the first gold on offer at the Beijing Olympics, shooting 40 shots at a target 10 m away, each having 74 minutes to finish the task at her own pace. Spectators (mostly mediapersons) are seated behind them on high-school-gym-style bleachers, squinting at the screen to track scores.

As it turns out, Anjali Bhagwat and Avneet Kaur Sidhu don’t make the top eight to get into the finals. Bhagwat had, for a few minutes, been in eighth place, but eventually her score of 393 (that is, seven misses) just doesn’t make the cut in a fray in which the Czech Republic’s Katerina Emmons gets a perfect 400, the lowest placed qualifier gets 397.

Du Li, local girl and defending champion, does though, placed fifth with 399.

It’s when the women move to the finals hall that you realise that to watch a shooting competition is to gain infinite opportunities to speculate about character and tactics, to give yourself license to read reason in the smallest of gestures.

... contd.