The Hindu : Sport / Olympic Games : Anjali, Deepali disappoint

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 21, 2004

Sport

Sport - Olympic Games

Anjali, Deepali disappoint

By Kamesh Srinivasan

ATHENS, AUG. 20. Anjali Vedpathak Bhagwat shot a 575 and finished 13th in the women's sport rifle three-position event at the Markopoulo range here on Friday. The other Indian in the fray Deepali Deshpande ended up 19th in a field of 32 with a 572.

Still recovering from the disappointment of the air rifle event, Anjali had rounds of 193 in prone, 193 in standing and 189 in kneeling.

A card of 92 in the first series of kneeling upset her chances of making the final, as 579 made the final.

Gold for Galkina

Lioubov Galkina of Russia pocketed the 3-position gold with a superb performance and also a final Olympic record to boot. She won by a 2.6-point margin.

"Today's match was OK. I didn't make any mistakes, except that the first series in kneeling was a little bad. I haven't got the consistency in the 3-position event. I have been focusing on it from 2003, and have been able to shoot 583 in the Sydney World Cup. The conditions were fine, and there was no wind as we had feared," said Anjali.

The 34-year-old Mumbai lady was quite philosophical about her overall Olympic performance and said, "if it can happen to Michael Diamond, it can happen to me also. The thing is I am more mature now. I thought that if I could make the final in the Sydney Olympics without any preparation, I would be able to perform much better here. But it doesn't happen that way. The world is moving ahead very fast. We need to prepare systematically for four years, and have to be perfect with our programme especially during the Olympics,"

Deepali was quite upset that she could not recapture her brilliant practice form in the last couple of months, when she has been shooting around 590, pretty close to the world record of 592.

"I have been in shooting long enough to know that I can't shoot the same in matches that I shoot in practice. I lacked the match practice before the Olympics. The last match that I had shot was in the World Cup in Milan in June.

" If you compare the preparation that Rajyavardhan Rathore had with what we had there is a huge difference. We got a coach very late. I don't want to complain much, but I told the coach after coming out of the range, to see how I do in the World championship," said Deepali.

The national coach Prof. Sunny Thomas emphasised that it was difficult for both Anjali and Deepali to do much after having had a bad start in prone.

"Anjali had a 193 and Deepali 194. They are used to shooting around 198 and 199. In standing Deepali had a 189, when she is used to doing 198. Both didn't have much time to do even the sighters in kneeling. You have to distribute time appropriately. I think they will get better by competing in more big matches. Olympics is the biggest," said Prof. Thomas.

AP reports

Emmons wins

Matt Emmons of the United States won the Olympic gold medal in men's 50m prone rifle on Friday with a score of 703.3.

Christian Lusch of Germany won the silver medal with 702.2, while Sergei Martynov of Belarus took the bronze.

Emmons led all shooters after the qualifying round with a score of 599, which meant that only one of his 60 shots failed to hit the bull's-eye. In the final, where shots are measured in fractions of a point, Emmons shot a 104.3.

Martynov had the highest score in the final, shooting 105.6 to vault himself into a podium spot after finishing fifth in qualifying. Emmons won four U.S. college rifle team titles and was a three-time college champion in smallbore rifle and 2001 champion in air rifle.

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