Olympian Heena Sidhu finished eighth in air pistol in the shooting World Cup in Munich on Wednesday.
The 22-year-old Heena qualified into the final in the second place with a national record-equalling 389, following a series of 98, 99, 96 and 96. However, she was the first to be eliminated in the final as she managed only two 10s out of eight shots for a total of 76.1. She had, in fact, started the final with an 8.5 that weighed her down and she shot 9.0 and 9.4 on the last two that pushed her out.
The other Olympian in the air pistol team, Annu Raj Singh, shot 583 and was placed 10th in a field of 101 shooters following a series of 95, 93, 97 and 98.
Interestingly, multiple Olympic medallist and former World champion, Jasna Sekaric of Serbia, who had qualified for the final in the first place with a total of 390, was knocked out second after Heena.
Eighth-placed qualifier Viktoria Chaika of Belarus walked away with the gold medal, 1.8 points behind Malaysian Lee Yean Joseline Cheah, who was one point behind Heena in the qualification.
There were no such fireworks in the men’s rifle 3-position event as Gagan Narang was placed 56th with a total of 1142. Though he scored 399 out of 400 in prone, Narang shot 373 in kneeling and 370 in standing positions, which did not help his cause.
The other Olympian in the fray, Sanjeev Rajput shot 390 in kneeling and 386 in prone, but spoilt his performance with a 362 in standing.
Nemanja Mirosavljev of Serbia won the gold by a 0.6 margin, ahead of Ole Kristin Bryhn of Norway, despite a last shot of 7.9.
The results: Men: 50m rifle 3P: 1. Nemanja Mirosavljev (Srb) 454.5; 2. Ole Kristian Bryhn (Nor) 453.9; 3. Marcel Buerge (Sui) 441.6; 56. Gagan Narang 1142; 61, Surendra Sinh Rathod 1139; 63. Sanjeev Rajput 1138. MQS: Navdeep Singh Rathore 1,132.
Women: Air pistol: 1. Viktoria Chaika (Blr) 199.6 (384); 2. Lee Yean Joseline Cheah (Mas) 197.8 (388); 3. Munkhbayar Dorjsuren (Ger) 175.1 (388); 8. Heena Sidhu 76.1 (389); 10. Annu Raj Singh 383; 62. Ruchita Vinerkar 371. MQS: Malaika Goel 377; Shreya Gawande 366.
