Jitu Rai placed fourth in World Cup

At the shooting World Cup in Munich, the 28-year-old Jitu Rai lost the race for a medal owing to a string of 8s in the final, for which he had just about qualified with a score of 560 in men’s 50-metre free pistol. He was placed fourth.

Published : May 22, 2016 21:42 IST , New Delhi

Jitu Rai, with a tally of 560, was overtaken by Pablo Carrera, Pang Wei and Jin Jongoh.
Jitu Rai, with a tally of 560, was overtaken by Pablo Carrera, Pang Wei and Jin Jongoh.
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Jitu Rai, with a tally of 560, was overtaken by Pablo Carrera, Pang Wei and Jin Jongoh.

World Championship silver medallist and Asian Games champion Jitu Rai was placed fourth in men’s 50-metre free pistol in the shooting World Cup in Munich on Sunday. The 28-year-old Jitu who had won a gold earlier this season in the Bangkok World Cup, lost the race for a medal owing to a string of 8s in the final, for which he had just about qualified with a score of 560.

Even though he recovered to shoot 10.3 and 10.2 on his last two shots, Jitu was comfortably overtaken by three-time Olympic champion and two-time World Champion Jin Jongoh of Korea, by 2.7 points. Jitu had shot a series of 92, 93, 95, 92, 95 and 93 for a total of 560 with 12x and pipped two others, including two-time World Cup Final gold medallist Wang Zhiwei, by virtue of his better last card.

Two others, including Prakash Nanjappa, who will be competing in the event in the Rio Games, fared below par. Prakash (552) and Omkar Singh (547) placed 35th and 41st respectively.

Meanwhile, in women’s sports pistol, Commonwealth Games gold medallist, Anisa Sayyed looked to have recaptured her good performance, even though she could not progress into the medal matches after the semifinals and placed sixth following a shoot-off.

Anisa was fighting for one berth in the bronze medal match on being tied on 13 in the semifinals, but lost the shoot-off to Heidi Diethelm Gerber of Switzerland, who was pipped by the eventual bronze medallist Naphaswan Yangpaiboon of Thailand.

The 35-year-old Anisa had qualified ahead of Tanyaporn Prucksaorn of Thailand after being tied on 582, for the last berth in the knock-out phase.

Heena and Jasna disqualified

Meanwhile, world record holder in air pistol Heena Sidhu was disqualified in the sports pistol event as her pistol trigger was lighter than specification. She had the distinction of being disqualified along with five-time Olympic medallist and three-time World Champion, the 50-year-old Jasna Sekaric of Serbia.

In men’s rifle prone event, Gagan Narang (619.4) and Chain Singh (620.7) made the cut for qualification phase in the elimination round, while Swapnil Kusale (617.6) was left out.

In men’s 25-metre rapid fire pistol, Gurpreet Singh shot 287, following a series of 98, 94, 95, and found himself around the 25th spot at the halfway stage, seven points behind leader Kim Jun Hong of Korea.

The results:

Men: 50m free pistol: 1. Pablo Carrera (Esp) 193.9 (565); 2. Pang Wei (Chn) 190.3 (561); 3. Jin Jongoh (Kor) 170.4 (561); 4. Jitu Rai 149.7 (560); 35. Prakash Nanjappa 552; 41. Omkar Singh 547. MQS: Deepak Sharma 537.

Women: 25m sports pistol: 1. Zhang Jingjing (Chn) 7 (21) 586; 2. Olena Kostevych (Ukr) 1 (15)4,3,2 (583); 3. Naphaswan Yangpaiboon (Tha) 7 (13)4,4 (584); 4. Antoaneta Boneva (Bull) 3 (15) 4,3,1 (585); 6. Anisa Sayyed 13(1) 582; 58. Pushpanjali Rana 566. MQS: Annu Raj Singh 572; Surabhi Pathak 565.

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