Seonaid McIntosh is urging fans at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre to keep cranking up the noise despite enduring a difficult first day at the Olympics.

The Scottish star combined with Mike Bargeron for the 10m air rifle mixed team event but could only muster a 26th place finish out of 28 teams competing on Saturday morning.

McIntosh, 28, will now turn her attention to her 10m air rifle and 50m rifle 3 position (3P) events bidding to improve on her failure to make both of those individual finals in a behind-closed-doors Tokyo three years ago.

The atmosphere in salubrious Chateauroux, located over 250km south of Paris, was totally polarised to those Covid-ravaged Games and McIntosh believes that can benefit her heading into her favoured events.

"It was not my best ever today, but not my worst either – we weren't really expecting medals here,” said McIntosh, the world No.1 in the 3P rankings.

“It was a bit of a tactical one to get the nerves out before the individual matches, but I think we both did pretty well given the circumstances, so I'm happy.

"I think [the atmosphere] is important. The last time in Tokyo, there was no music and there was no crowd, so it was really quiet.

“I really struggle in silent ranges, so any kind of loud noise seems massively bigger.

"So when it’s noisy behind you, with a bit of music and a bit of crowd, it all just blurs into one big noise.

“I find it a lot easier to do, so it's nice to have people in the background."

McIntosh and Bargeron, who became the first British man to qualify a rifle shooting Olympic quota place since London 2012, could only muster a combined score of 622.1 to finish ahead of only Kazakhstan and Egypt in qualifying.

And it was China who went on to grab gold – the first of the Games – on Saturday morning, beating Korea in the final after topping the initial table earlier in the day.

McIntosh, who will compete in her 10m air rifle on Sunday, added: “I've got individual air rifle next, and then hopefully the final the next day.

“I’ll just go and recover now, and get some food and drink in.

“I’ll probably do some training this afternoon and then go and get some rest.”

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