Samaresh finishes third as big guns fall silent
New Delhi, Oct. 13: Given the standards they had set at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting range at these Games, India finished on a disappointing note, going without a gold on Wednesday.
The Indian shooters won a silver and a bronze on the day to take their overall tally to 30 medals, three more than their best-ever haul at the Melbourne Games.
Heena Sidhu, who won gold in the 10m air rifle pairs on Tuesday, missed top honours by a whisker. Heena shot overall 481.6 compared to Malaysian Pei Chin Bibiana’s 481.9 to settle for silver.
Dina Aspandiyarova of Australia grabbed silver with 478.9, three points ahead of Annu Raj Singh, who finished fourth.
It was a neck-and-neck battle for Heena till the end until Bibiana peaked in the last three shots. Heena and Bibiana were level at 383 after the qualifying round but a few bad shots in the final 10s cost the former another gold.
“During qualification I was feeling a little cold and then I was unable to concentrate watching my opponent following me closely. I was trying to focus before the finals and so got exhausted,” Heena said.
Veteran Samaresh Jung had another unimpressive day, clinching bronze in the 25m standard pistol after scoring a below par 559 against Trinidadian Roger Peter Daniel (563), who took silver while Gai Bin (570) of Singapore took the gold.
The in-form Gagan Narang failed to land a fifth gold after a dismal 590 saw him miss qualification for the final round. Hariom Singh had another bad day finishing eighth with 689.6 points.
The idea was to get the maximum gold medals, but four gold with new records is good. I am struggling in the prone position,” Gagan said.
“The pressure is always there. We could have done better in the pairs event (men’s 50m rifle prone), but both of us (Hariom Singh included) are equally responsible for it (failure),” he added.
England’s Richard Brickell (144, +7) captured the skeet gold while Cypriots Georgios Achilleos (144, +6) and Andreas Chasikos (143, +6+2) took silver and bronze respectively.
Pic Caption:
Heena Sidhu won the 10m air rifle silver at the Dr Karni Singh range on Wednesday.
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