The Indian shooters continued to assert their class and calibre, as Prakash Nanjappa won the men’s air pistol bronze in the shooting World Cup in Changwon, Korea, on Saturday.
After the gold haul by the young Rahi Sarnobat in women’s sports pistol, the 37-year-old Nanjappa was in the hunt for the gold himself, but slipped while leading among the last three in the knock-out final.
Having shot 582 in the qualification, one point behind the leaders, Nanjappa was in fine touch as he led the field after the eighth shot and retained his hold till the 16th shot in the final.
However, scores of 9.4 and 9.3 undid all his good work, as Nanjappa was eliminated from the race for the gold by 0.3 point, behind Chinese Wang Zhiwei.
Yet, it was a morale boosting performance for Nanjappa.
Incidentally, Nanjappa had comfortably pushed past the reigning double world champion, Tomoyuki Matsuda of Japan who placed fourth.
The results :
Men: Air pistol : 1. Xuan Vinh Hoang (Vie) 200.8 (583); 2. Wang Zhiwei (Chn) 200.1 (583); 3. Prakash Nanjappa 180.2 (582); 7. Jitu Rai 97.4 (582); 27. Amanpreet Singh 571. MQS : Amit Kumar Pilaniya 577.
50m rifle prone : 1. Henri Junghaenel (Ger) 209.6 (623.4 WR); 2. Michael Mcphail (US) 207.4 (619.4); 3. Lionel Cox (Bel) 186.4 (617.2); 23. Hariom Singh 611.2; 30. Sushil Ghalay 609.8; 34. Sanjeev Rajput 606.5.
