India's first medal in the 15th Asian Games came through the shooting trio of Gagan Narang, P T Raghunath and Navanath Faratade who won the bronze medal in the 10m air rifle team event in Doha on Saturday.
India missed the silver by a whisker to South Korea, while China took the gold.
The Indian trio of Naran (595), Raghunath (592) and Faratade (589) totalled 1776 which was a point less than the Koreans (1777) who won the silver. The Chinese team comprising China's Olympic champion Zhu Qinan, reigning Games champion Li Jie and Liu Tianyou totalled a comfortable 1786 for the gold.
Gagan had a good series of scores as he shot 99, 100, 99, 98 and 100 and was given a good company by Raghunath who shot 98, 100, 97, 100, 99, 98. But it was Faratade who proved to be the weak link with scores of 97, 100, 99, 98, 100 and 95.
Faratade's first and last series score made the big difference to India's fortunes.
Interestingly Zhu Qinan was not in best full form and totalled 594, a point less then Gagan. Zhu shot 100, 99, 98, 98, 100, 99, but his compatriots Tianyou Liu (598) and Jie Lie (594) saw China through to the gold.
Korean team scorers were Yu Jaechul (596), Chae Kean Bae (591), Kim Hyesung (590).
The Chinese, however, missed the world record of 1788, set by their compatriots at Busan Asian Games in 2002.
"Ït was just a case of bad luck, otherwise we would have won a silver," said India's coach Sunny Thomas.
Thomas praised his boys for putting up a good show in a very strong field.
"I hope the shooters will keep winning the medals and I am also happy that it is the shooting team which gave India the first medal in the very first session of the Games," he added.
