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Rediff.com  » Sports » Indian shooters misfire for second day running

Indian shooters misfire for second day running

Source: PTI
Last updated on: November 16, 2010 15:38 IST
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After their cornering glory in the Commonwealth Games and a promising start to the competitions in Guangzhou, the much touted Indian shooters drew a blank at the range for the second day running at the Asian Games on Tuesday with the pistol markswomen way off target.

After bagging two silver and as many bronze medals, the shooters, who provided India with the golden touch at the CWG, put up a major flop show and left everyone wondering what has gone wrong with them.

The women's trio of Rahi Sarnobat, Annu Raj Singh and Anisa Sayyed flopped badly in the 25-metre pistol event as the trio failed to qualify for the finals in the individual category and finished a disappointing seventh in the team competition at the Aoti Shooting Range.

Rahi was the best of the lot, finishing the qualifiers in the 10th position with 577 points (286 in the precision round and 292 in rapid). She shot rounds of 96, 94 and 96 in precision and followed it up with a better display in the rapid fire (96, 96, 99).

Annu was no better as she shot 288 and 286 in the two rounds for an overall tally of 574 that fetched her the 18th spot -- 97, 95, 96 in precision and 95, 96, 95 in rapid -- while

Commonwealth Games gold medallist Anisa finished a disappointing 26th with a tally of 566 points (282 and 284), well below her effort in Delhi last month.

Anisa shot 97, 92 and 93 and 95, 93, 96 in the two segments, well below what she is capable of. The best qualifying effort came from Japan's Mori Yukari (587) but her team finished only fourth.

The Indian trio were no better in the team event as they finished seventh with an overall aggregate of 1717, six below bronze medal winning South Korea.

Kazakhstan won the gold with 1731, while Mongolia (1725) and South Korea (1723) bagged silver and bronze respectively.

India's chief shooting coach Sunny Thomas conceded the women were totally off colour on Tuesday and bemoaned that had Anisa shot slightly better and got six more points the team would have returned with at least a bronze.

But Thomas added that Anisa complained of pain in her hand and also took medical help at the clinic inside the range.

"Anisa shot 566 which was much below her 585 in Delhi. Had she shot six more points we could have secured the team bronze. But she had complained about some pain in her shooting hand for which she got treated at the clinic inside the range. She took some pain killers and participated," he said.

"But I don't want to tout that an excuse. If it had to happen it happened, that's all," he said.

Anisa also said that but for the pain in her hand, for which she took medications, she would have done much better.

"I can do 585 any day and 572 would have won us a medal. But I could not lift the pistol because of the pain. The hand was stiff," she said.

Thomas, who again reiterated that it was not easy to sustain high quality performance for four months running since the World Championship in August, said the rifle shooters will also have to face difficult wind conditions in this range during their event on Wednesday.

"Yesterday it was very windy in the morning, but okay in the afternoon. I am afraid our shooters will have trouble in tomorrow's 50m rifle 3 position for women and day after's event for men," he said.

Thomas said the team was set to take part in two events on Wednesday (women's 50m rifle 3-position and men's standard pistol), two more on November 18 (men's 50m rifle 3-position and men's centre fire pistol) before the action shifts to the shotgun range away from this arena.

So far in four days' of competition the Indian shooters have secured two silver medals (individual silver for Gagan Narang in 10m air rifle and silver for the team in same event) and bronze for the women's 10m air pistol team and Vijay Kumar (10m air pistol individual for men).

The Indian shooters had returned with three gold, five silver and six bronze in the Doha Asian Games four years ago and won a total of 30 medals, including 14 gold, in last month's CWG.

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