India failed to find its usual golden touch on the concluding day of the shooting competitions finishing with two silver medals and two bronzes on Tuesday.
London 2012 silver medallist and defending champion Vijay Kumar failed to make it to the final of his pet event and Gagan Narang was forced to settle for the bronze, his 10th medal through three Games, in the 50m rifle 3-positions
Worse still was the performance of trap shooters Mansher Singh and Manavjit Singh.
Mansher had a nightmarish second session and failed to make the final four, while Manavjit was involved in a shoot-off with Australian veteran Michael Diamond before earning a bronze.
In the 25m rapid fire pistol, Harpreet Singh won the silver behind Australian J. David Champman.
The two were tied with 19 points at the end of the penultimate round of the final series and while the Australian hit a 4, the Indian could only manage a 2 and a total of 21.
What cost Vijay dear was his poor display in the second stage. The favourite, who had a total of 281 from Monday, had a score of 96 in the 8-second sequence and 98 in six seconds.
But in the final 4-second series, he could return only 80 and went out of the reckoning.
Harpreet, who had shot 292 on Monday, completed the second stage with a score of 281 to lead the eight qualifiers into the final. But then, as ill-luck would have it he was not destined for a top of the podium finish due to his final shot.
Narang was pushed to the third spot in 50m rifle 3-position in a tense final. He had a total of 1156 points in the qualifiers, just one shy of eventual winner Daniel Rivers.
In the final, it was a fight between Narang and Sanjeev Rajput for the silver as Rivers had a comfortable lead right from the start.
Mansher disappointed at the start of the third round of trap with a score of 21 as against the 25 that he had returned in both the rounds on Monday.
Hitting a 23 each through the next two rounds, he was able to finally get to the third position at the end of qualifiers with a total of 117 points, the same as Manavjit.
Poor final round
Manavjit until his poor 19 in the final round of the qualifiers was the one who was in the lead. Into the first stage of competition for a spot in the semifnals, Mansher disappointed returning a score of only 11 from 15 shots.
This paved the way for his exit while Manavjit continued to remain in the fray with 13 and thereby qualifying for the bronze medal match.
Great comeback
Later, Lajja Gauswami earned a bronze medal in the women’s 50m rifle 3 positions after staging a good comeback in the final.
She was placed sixth in the qualifiers with a score of 571 but into the final Lajja was second through two rounds of kneeling and prone. In the the standing — elimination — round she fell a place back and in the end had to be satisfied with the third spot with 436.1 points.
The event was won by Jasmine Ser (Singapore) who had a score of 449.1 points as against 446.6 compiled by Jen McIntosh (Scotland). The other Indian entry in the event, Elizabeth Koshy was ninth in the preliminaries with 566 points and failed to make progress.
India finished its campaign in the discipline with four golds, nine silvers and four bronzes.
