Manavjit, Mansher bow out

It was another day of disappointment for Indian shooters at the Olympic Games in Athens on Sunday as Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Mansher Singh bowed out in the preliminary round in the men's trap event at the Markopoulo Shooting Centre.

While Manavjit ended up joint 19th, with a total of 116 points, world No. 13 Mansher shared the 21st place with a score of 115.

Led by Russian Alexei Alipov, who equalled the Olympic record with a score of 124 out of 125, the top eight shooters moved into the final.

Manavjit missed four birds in the fourth round and finished with scores of 22, 25, 24, 21, 24.

Mansher returned a card of 25, 23, 21, 23, 23 for a total of 115 that saw him improve his ranking by one place from Saturday's 22nd place.

The 38-year-old Mansher, who began with a bang recording a perfect 25 in the first round, came up with an identical 23 in the last two rounds to complete the formalities.

Mansher was competing in his second Olympics after participating in the 1996 Atlanta Games.

In the women's 10m air rifle on Saturday, world No. 6 Anjali Vedpathak Bhagwat ended up a poor 20th while Suma Shirur finished eighth and last in the final.

On Saturday, day one of the competition, Manavjit Singh totalled 71 points (22, 25 and 24 respectively) in the three rounds and was in joint 16th position while Mansher Singh faded after starting well with a perfect score in the first round and eventually managed to total only 69 in the three rounds to finish the day in 22nd position.