World Championship and Olympic medallist Gagan Narang continued to assert his systematic preparation for the Rio Olympics by making the rifle prone final in the shooting World Cup in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Sunday.
It was the second final of the ongoing World Cup for the 33-year-old Gagan who had made the air rifle final earlier along with the former World and Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra. He will be competing in the rifle 3-position event next.
After shooting 621.7 in the qualification phase, which was an improvement on his 619.0 in the elimination round, Gagan placed seventh as he missed further progress by 0.2 point. Torben Grimmel of Denmark who was 0.2 point ahead of Gagan in avoiding elimination for the seventh place, went on to win the gold.
Sanjeev Rajput shot 617.6 and missed the final by 3.4 point. He had shot 612.7 in the elimination round, in which Chain Singh got knocked out with a score of 604.1.
It was another discouraging performance from rapid fire pistol specialist Gurpreet Singh as he missed 27 points in the 4-second series, as against a total of seven points in the 8-second and 6-second series. Gurpreet, shooting the event in which Vijay Kumar had won the silver in the London Olympics, placed 26th with a total of 569.
It has otherwise been a healthy performance by the Indian shooters in the last World Cup before the Olympics as there were a few finalists apart from the silver won by Jitu Rai in men’s 10-metre air pistol.
The results:
Men: 50m rifle prone : 1. Torben Grimmel (Den) 208.4 (622.2); 2. Kenneth Parr (GBR) 208.0 (622.1); 3. Petar Gorsa (Cro) 187.5 (622.9); 7. Gagan Narang 103.1 (621.1); 14. Sanjeev Rajput 617.6.
25m rapid fire pistol: 1. Christian Reitz (Ger) 32 (591); 2. Zhang Fusheng (Chn) 30 (582); 3. Kang Minsu (Kor) 25 (584); 26. Gurpreet Singh 569.
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