A day after taking the 50m free pistol gold, shooter Jitu Rai was on course for another yellow at the 17th Asian Games here on Sunday when a bout of clapping broke his composure.
Rai, the World No. 1, was tied with Korean Kim Cheongyong after the 10th shot in the men’s 10m air pistol finals and was getting ready for this next attempt when a bout of clapping in the audience broke his concentration.
He still had 17 seconds remaining for that 11th shot but he thought he was running out of time and made a hasty attempt.
That brought him just a score of 7.8 and cruelly pushed him down. In the end Rai, the favourite for the gold, could only finish fifth.
“That distracted me. I was very tired too,” said Rai, who had finished second after the qualification series, after the final.
However, he played a big role in India winning a bronze in the 10m air pistol team event earlier.
The Indian team, comprising Rai, Samresh Jung and Prakash Nanjappa, were running fourth in the early stages, and then got into the silver zone during the last 10 shots before settling for the bronze.
India, which narrowly missed the silver which went to China with 1743.65 points, finished with a total of 1743.64. Korea, with its cool 17-year-old left-hander Kim Cheongong in fine touch (he went on to win the individual gold later) towards the end, took the team gold with 1744.71 pts.
The results:
Men : 10m air pistol: 1. Kim Cheongyong (Kor) 201.2 (585); 2. Pang Wei (Chn) 199.3 (585); 3. Jin Jongoh (Kor) 179.3 (581); 5. Jitu Rai 138.3 (585); 9. Samaresh Jung 580; 14. Prakash Nanjappa 580.
Team : 1. Korea 1744; 2. China 1743 (65x); 3. India 1743 (64x).
Trap : 1. Gao Bo (Chn) 15 (13) 119; 2. Fehaid Aldeehani (Kuw) 12 (14) 122; 3. Andrey Mogilevskiy (Kaz) 14 (11) 119; 11. Mansher Singh 117; 14. Manavjit Singh Sandhu 116; 36. Kynan Chenai 108.
Team : 1. China 357; 2. Kuwait 354; 3. Korea 345; 6. India 341.