Navdeep Singh Rathore won the junior rifle prone gold, but the Indian men were below par in air pistol in the 12th Asian shooting championship in Doha, Qatar, on Sunday.
Omkar Singh shot 572 and was placed 22nd in a field of 54. Amanpreet Singh (571) and Om Prakash (567) finished 25th and 35th respectively.
Thus, the aspirations of the Indian air pistol shooters of making it to the Olympics went up in smoke. Pistol ace Samaresh Jung, who had won the David Dixon ‘best athlete' award in the Commonwealth Games in 2006, had qualified for the Beijing Olympics in the last cycle, but could not find a place in the Indian squad for the Olympic events this time.
Navdeep was in excellent form in the final, and thus overcame a two-point deficit after the qualification round when he shot 588 to beat China's Liu Liong by 0.9 point, for the 50-metre rifle prone gold in the junior men's section.
The results:
Air pistol: Men: 1. Jin Jong Oh (Kor) 689.6 (587); 2. Wang Zhiwei (Chn) 683.1 (586); 3. Tomoyuki Matsuda (Jpn) 682.7 (584); 22. Omkar Singh 572; 25. Amanpreet Singh 571; 35. Om Prakash 567. Team: 1. Korea 1746, 2. Japan 1735; 3. Vietnam 1734; 9. India 1710.
Juniors: 1. Chen Hu (Chn) 674.1 (575); 2. Liu Qi (Chn) 671.8 (570); 3. Zhang Hao (Chn) 671.7 (571); 5. Karan Pratap Randhawa 667.6 (570); 6. Akshay Jain 666.8 (567); 11. Vivek Kumar 564. Team: 1. China 1716; 2. Korea 1702; 3. India 1701.
Juniors: 50m rifle prone: 1. Navdeep Singh Rathore 689.3 (588); 2. Liu Liong (Chn) 688.2 (590); 3. H. Sanahal Singh 683.2 (582); 17. Vaibhav Sharma 558. Team: 1. China 1752; 2. Iran 1738; 3. India 1728.
