Zoravar Singh Sandhu tried too hard and missed the last bird and a bronze medal in men’s trap in the shooting World Cup at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Saturday.
The self-imposed pressure of competing at home possibly caught up with the 39-year-old Zoravar who had won a World Cup bronze in Changwon in 2007. Zoravar may not have much experience in the finals except for the two Asian Championships in 2007 and 2013, apart from the Asian Games in Busan in 1998, but handled the final remarkably well.
After being in the lead for the most part with the eventual gold and silver medallists, Simone D’Ambrosio and Giovanni Pellielo of Italy, Zoravar missed three of the last 10 birds as against one by Alberto Fernandez of Spain, the eventual bronze medallist.
Missing the bird
Zoravar could have salvaged the bronze but for missing the 35th bird.
In fact, Zoravar had missed the last bird in the fourth series in the morning. Yet, he had done a commendable job of shooting 23, 24, 23, 24 and 24 over two days in tough conditions to qualify for the final in the fourth place.
The 20-year-old Simone D. Ambrosio, the European junior champion and a silver medallist of a Junior World Cup last year in Gabala, won the gold ahead of the four-time World Champion and three-time Olympic silver medallistGiovanni Pellielo.
The results:
Men: 25m rapid fire pistol: 1. Lao Jiajie (Chn) 31(5) 583; 2. Lin Junmin (Chn) 31(3) 585; 3. Ruslan Lunev (Aze) 23 (579); 6. Neeraj Kumar 9 (579); 12. Gurpreet Singh 573; 15. Harpreet Singh 568. MQS: Vijay Kumar 569; Rajesh Kumar 582.
Trap: 1. Simone D’ Ambrosio (Ita) 45 (117); 2. Giovanni Pellielo (Ita) 43 (119); 3. Alberto Fernandez (Esp) 33 (120); 4. Zoravar Singh Sandhu 28 (118); 15. Kynan Chenai 113; 33. Birendeep Sodhi 108.
MQS: Manavjit Singh Sandhu 117; Prithviraj Tondaiman 113 .
