‘Goldfinger’ Jitu leads India’s one-two

Gurpal Singh claws his way up from sixth in preliminaries to bag silver

July 28, 2014 06:33 pm | Updated November 16, 2021 05:45 pm IST - Glasgow

Jitu Rai was bang on target as he helped India continue its golden run in the shooting competitions of the 20th Commonwealth Games at the Barry Buddon shooting centre near here on Monday.

The 26-year-old from Lucknow was confidence personified right through the preliminaries and final of the 50m pistol event.

He, in fact, assured himself the gold at the end of the eighth of the nine-round final, holding an impressive 7.1 point lead over compatriot Gurpal Singh. Rai finished with a new Games record total of 194.1 points.

Gurpal, 34, hailing from Bathinda and currently serving in the Indian Army, had a total of 187.2 points after having clawed his way up from the sixth position that he held after the preliminary round and third after the fourth round.

Rai had a total of 562 after the six-round qualifiers with a sequence of 93, 94, 93, 95, 91 and 96 while Gurpal finished with 538 (89, 90, 91, 90, 90 and 88) through his six rounds.

In the final Rai was placed third after the first round of three shots, before he got to the top at the end of the second.

From then on it was virtually a one-horse race as the Indian confidently shot for his first gold medal in a major international competition.

“This gives an immense feeling and I am very happy with my first gold medal. I was going well in qualification and I just wanted to be calm throughout. In the end there was absolutely no tension or pressure,” said Rai later.

Gurpal was also happy with his effort that pushed Australia’s Daniel Repacholi to the third spot.

“I always kept saying that I can do it, I can do it. And once I got into medal range, I knew it was my day. I am very happy for Jitu too,” he said.

Silver for Narang

Later, the prolific Gagan Narang — despite a brilliant effort — had to settle in second place in the men’s 50m rifle prone.

The 2012 London Olympics bronze-medallist, who had missed out the chance to defend his 10m air rifle owing to the poor form he showed during the trials back home, finished the qualifiers in third position with a card of 620.5 points on his debut in the event.

Joydeep Karmakar, the second Indian entrant though a veteran of many international outings, suffered the ignominy of failing to make the final finishing ninth with a total of 617.0 points.

The wind did change directions as the final got underway but this did not put Gagan in any sort of fix as he leapfrogged into the lead after the second round.

But Warren Potent (Australia) had other ideas as he took the lead into the fourth round and then went on to win the title with 204.3 points as against Gagan’s 203.6.

The key to Australian’s edge was his consistency — he had scores of eighteen 10s to Gagan’s 15 in the 20-shot final.

Despite losing out the gold by such a narrow margin, Gagan seemed happy.

“Not disappointed at all. This is my third Games and ninth medal. And I am going home with a medal which I have never won before,” he said.

Elsewhere, Mansher Singh and Manavjit Singh Sandhu were comfortably placed at the top of the field after the first day of qualification in men’s trap.

Mansher had a perfect 50, from two rounds of 25 each, while Manavjit lost one shot in the second round after finishing the first without a blemish.

In women’s trap, Shreyasi Singh and Seema Tomar finished seventh and eighth with scores of 66 and 65 and thus failed to qualify for the semifinals.

Shreyasi had the chance to make it as she was tied with Laetisha Scanlan (Australia) after the three rounds of qualification, but got knocked out in the shoot-off.

In the women’s 50m rifle prone, Meena Kumari and Laija Gausami failed to finish among the medals.

In the event won by New Zealand’s Sally Johnston with 620.7 points, Meena was placed sixth with 615.3 points and Laija eleventh with 612.3 points.

This article has been corrected for a factual error.

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