Indian shooters put up a dismal show on another windy day as they drew a blank for the third day in running with only pistol expert and Melbourne Commonwealth Games hero Samaresh Jung coming up with something notable in the Asian Games on Wednesday.
Jung missed the men’s 25m standard pistol shoot-off for the bronze by one point in a straight final to finish 7th overall with 569 points from amongst 39 shooters.
But his two other teammates, Pemba Tamang and Chandrahas Chaudhary, performed very poorly, shooting only 550 and 549 out of 600 to end up 22nd and 23rd respectively and the combined effort cost India a team medal too as they finished fourth with 1668 points, well behind bronze winners North Korea’s 1690, from eleven contestants.
World women’s prone position champion Tejaswini Sawant too put up a disappointing display finishing 23rd out of 45 shooters with a shocking 569 points in the women’s 3-position rifle event.
Her teammate Lajjakumari Gauswami ended up a rung below her with the same score and Chetenpreet Kaur Nilon secured the 31st spot with 559.
The Indian squad ended up a shocking 9th out of 12 competing teams with 1697 points. China won the gold wth 1733, South Korea the silver with 1728 and the bronze was claimed by Iran (1719).
In the 25m pistol event, Jung fired 569 out of 600, an improvement of ten points from his performance in last month’s Commonwealth Games in Delhi, with 13 scores of ten but missed the cut off for the third-place play-off by one point with four others logging 570. He finished seventh overall.
Jung logged 194, 189 and 186 in the 150 seconds, 20 seconds and ten seconds stages respectively — the best being the longer one in which he fired 96 and 98 in the series of two shots.
The faster he had to shoot, the farther he shot off the target.
In the four-way shoot-off, China’s Jin Yongde won the bronze while the gold and silver went to South Korea’s Hong Seonghwan (575 with 20 tens) and North Korea’s (573 with 14 tens).
Jung’s teammates Pemba Tamang were way off target to log 188, 187 and 175 and 185, 190 and 174 respectively. They were especially off target in the ten-seconds shots.
In the women’s rifle event, Tejaswini shot 98 and 98 in the prone event which fetched her the world title in Munich in August.
She did 92 and 93 in standing and 95 and 93 kneeling. Lajja did very well in prone before her scores tapered off.
She did 197 (98 and 99) in prone, 183 in standing (93 and 90) and 189 in kneeling (96 and 93) while Chetenpreet’s scores in the three positions were 190 (96 and 94) prone, 183 (90 and 93) standing and 186 (93 and 93) kneeling.
The women have completed their engagements in pistol and rifle shooting with only one bronze to show for, in the women’s 10m air pistol team event.
Chief coach Sunny Thomas said it was quite windy in the 50m range but that cannot be touted as an excuse as the scores put up by the women shooters were way below par.
“It was very windy again but the shooters need to adjust to these conditions, delay their shots by judging the changing wind direction by looking at the small flags in front of them,” Thomas said.
‘Not satisfied’
The coach said overall the performance of the shooters in four days of competition has been unsatisfactory.
“I am not at all satisfied. The scores are not good enough. Medals are different but the scores are not at all good. They are way below what they are capable of,” he said.
India scooped up two silver medals in the 10m air rifle on the first day with the individual medal going to CWG’s star performer Gagan Narang, and two bronze on the second day (women’s team in the 10m air pistol and Vijay Kumar in men’s individual air pistol event).
But Thomas expressed confidence that tomorrow the Indian men competitors in the 50m three-position rifle event have very good chances to win more than one medal.
“We have very good chances of medals (more than one) in the 3-position event. Narang, Sanjeev Rajput and Imran Hasan Khan are shooting very well,” he said.
There were also chances of a medal in the men’s 25m centre fire pistol event in which Vijay Kumar, Harpreet Singh and Gurpreet Singh would take part, he added.
Thomas also expressed hopes about India’s medal chances in the shot gun events which are to be held from November 19.
“Chances for medals are there as the field is slightly weaker than in the Commonwealth Games. Our team is very strong in both single and double trap. We have to win medals,” he said.
Asher Noria, Vikram Bhatnagar, Ronjon Sondhi (Double trap), Mansher Singh, Manavjit Singh and Zoravar Singh Sandhu (Trap), Miraj Ahmed Khan, Smit Singh and Allan Daniels (Skeet) form the men’s shot gun team.
The corresponding women’s team comprises Arti Singh Rao (Skeet), Shagun Chowdhury, Shreyasi Singh and Seema Tomar (Trap)
