One of India's brightest medal prospects at the Athens Olympics, rifle shooter Anjali Vedpathak-Bhagwat crashed out in the qualification round of the women's 50m rifle three-position event in the World Cup Shooting, being held as an Olympics test event, in Athens on Wednesday.
Anjali, ranked No. 9 in the world, finished a dismal 43rd in the preliminary round, even behind compatriot Deepali Deshpande (37th).
The CISF officer, who had earlier finished joint 15th in her pet event, the 10m air rifle, returned scores of 193 (97, 96) in prone, 191 (99, 92) in standing and 185 (92, 93) in kneeling, for a total of 569.
Only the top eight shooters qualify for the final.
Deepali scored 199, 190 and 182 in the three positions for a total of 571. The other Indian in the field, Suma Shirur, returned scores of 190, 187 and 190 for a tally of 567 to finish 51st.
Indians also fared none-too-impressively in two finals on Tuesday, with Aarti Singh Rao placing 24th in the women's skeet event, scoring 55/75 in three rounds, and Ronak Pandit ending up 26th in men's 50m pistol with a total of 551.
Ning Wei of China won the gold with a total of 86 (67 in the qualifying and 19 in the final) in women's skeet.
Frenchwoman Veronique Girardet Allard (85) pipped Azerbaijan's Zemitra Meftakhetdinova in shoot-off to clinch the silver medal.
Russians finished 1-2 in 50m pistol through Mikhail Nestrukev 664.4 and Boris Kokorov 663 respectively.
