The Hindu : Sport / Shooting : Jaspal Rana proves a point

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 10, 2005

Sport

Sport - Shooting

Jaspal Rana proves a point

A. Joseph Antony

HYDERABAD: For those who had written him off as a spent force, he served a reminder of his class with a gold-medal winning act at the Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh (SAAP) range here on Friday.

Although 29 and apparently not in peak form or fitness, Jaspal Rana had a point to prove. The competitor to his right in the centre fire contest was raising his shooting arm too soon, upsetting Rana's rhythm. Nonetheless, the Mussourie native held his own to tally 584 — 291 of them from the precision segment and 293 from duelling. "I am concentrating on the rapid fire event to secure a quota place for the Olympics," he said shortly after his triumph.

Two months ago, Rana had equalled the centre fire national record of 589, incidentally held by him and fell a point short of the world record of 590 at the trials at Delhi.

There was a tie-shoot between the father-son duo of Ashok and Ronak Pandit for the second and third places, after each scored 581. The parent's pistol had been stolen from his hotel room two days before and Ashok borrowed Ronak's weapon to run up a 581 score.

When it came to a face-off between the two, Ashok loaned his younger son Rommel's gun. "I had problems with it but thankfully things fell into place," said Pandit Sr of his 49-48 win over Ronak.

The results:

25m centre fire pistol: 1. Jaspal Rana (P): 49, 49, 50, 49, 45, 49 = 291. (D): 50, 48, 50, 46, 50, 49 = 293. Total: 584 (ONGC); 2. Ashok Pandit (P): 46, 48, 50, 47, 48, 48 = 287. (D): 49, 48, 48, 50, 50, 50 = 295. Total: 581 (Mah); 3. Ronak Pandit (P): 49, 48, 48, 50, 50, 50 = 295. (D): 47, 48, 46, 49, 49, 47 = 286. Total: 581 (Mah).

Team: 1. Army 1730 (Vijay 578, C.K. Choudhary 581, Mahavir Singh 571); 2. Maharashtra 1726 (Ronak Pandit 581, Ashok Pandit 581, Amol S. Chauhan 564); 3. Navy 1707 (Harpreet Singh 566, Satendra Kumar 572, Atul Yadav 569).

Juniors: 1. Ronak Pandit 581 (Mah); 2. Vijay Kumar 578 (Army); 3. Kanchan Gurung 577 (Army).

Women: Clay pigeon trap: 1. Seema Tomar (Army) 19, 20, 19 = 58; 2. Shagun Chowdhary (Raj) 19, 20, 19 = 58; 3. Rajshree Chettri (Army) 19, 21, 18 = 58.

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