The Hindu : Sport : India bags three silver medals

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Monday, Dec 04, 2006
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India bags three silver medals

Kamesh Srinivasan

— PHOTO: AFP

GOOD SHOW: Manavjit Singh Sandhu did well to bag silver in the tough windy conditions.

DOHA: Gold continued to elude the Indian shooters, but the squad did very well to gun down three silver medals, with world trap champion Manavjit Singh Sandhu leading from the front with an individual silver at the Lusail Shooting Complex here on Sunday.

It was an impressive performance from the shooters as India had won only two team silver medals in all in the last edition at Busan.

The Indian squad won the individual and team silver medals in trap while Harveen Srao, Sonia Rai and Shweta Chaudhary won the women's air pistol team silver. The 20-year-old Harveen was the best in the final and missed the bronze by 0.1 point.

Manavjit was on a par with the eventual gold medallist, Nasser Meqlad of Kuwait, till the 10th bird of the final, but missed seven out of 16 thereafter, in tough windy conditions when the plastic chairs were flying off like paper sheets. He thus let the gold slip, but shot well enough to ward off the threat from the former world champion and another Kuwaiti, Khaled Almudhaf, who shot the best in the final with a 20 out of 25.

After having shot 113 out of 125 including a 43 out of 50 in the last two rounds, that saw him go into the final one point behind the leader, Manav could muster only a 17 out of 25 in the final in which only one barrel was allowed as per the new rules.

Mental fatigue

Coach Marcello Dradi said he felt that Manav was perhaps tired mentally after having won the World Championship and the Asian Clay Championship in the last few months.

"I tried my best in the tough conditions. I am happy with the silver," said Manav. As the stiff wind played havoc with the speed and flight of the clay birds, a helicopter hovering in front for most of the time and the repeatedly malfunctioning machinery that kept throwing up `no birds' did not help the shooters' cause, especially in the final.

Needless to say, Kuwait won the team gold ahead of the Indians, which shot 322 out of 375, that compared poorly with its Asian record score of 360 that had helped the team win the silver in the last world championship.

While Mansher Singh struggled with a trigger problem, Anwer Sultan showed his class with a 45 out of 50 that ensured the silver for the team. After a 110 in the qualifying phase that saw him make the final, Anwer missed as many as 13 in the final, perhaps because he was mentally exhausted.

The Indian women's pistol shooters, Harveen Srao in particular did the team proud by bagging the team silver two points ahead of Korea and she shot the best among the eight finalists with a 101.5, but missed the bronze by 0.1 point despite a 10.7 last shot.

Harveen shot an impressive 383 out of 400, and recovered smartly after an 8.8 first shot in the final to string a superb series.

"It was brilliant shooting by Harveen in the final after that 8.8. She had eight 10s and I am happy about that more than the team silver. I expected an average of 380 from the three girls and they did it. They are capable of doing better as they have shot scores up to 389. I expected our shooters to get at least five medals and we have reached that on the second day. God willing we will have more and the gold too," said coach Prof. Sunny Thomas.

Correction: The AFP photograph accompanying the story on the Asian Games shooting event that appeared in these columns on December 3 is not that of Gagan Narang as published but of his 10m air rifle team-mate P.T. Raghunath. The caption error was on the part of the photo agency.

The results: Men: Trap: 1. Naser Meqlad (Kuw) 133 (114); 2. Manavjit Singh Sandhu 130 (113); 3. Khaled Almudhaf (Kuw) 128 (108), 6. Anwer Sultan 122 (110). Team: 1. Kuwait 327; 2. India 322, 3. Lebanon 316. Air pistol: 1. Tan Zongliang (Chn) 687.1 (588); 2. Jong Su Kim (North Kor) 684.8 (584); 3. Jong Oh Jin (Kor) 683.4 (583); 11. Samaresh Jung 576; 22. Deepak Sharma 571; 33. Ronak Pandit 565. Team: 1. China 1744; 2. Korea 1739; 3. Vietnam 1730; 7. India 1712.

Women: Air pistol: 1. Tao Luna (Chn) 490.3 (AR) (391 AR); 2. Guo Wenjun (Chn) 487.0 (386); 3. Byung Hee Kim (Kor) 484.6 (386); 4. Harveen Srao 484.5 (383); 9. Sonia Rai 381; 17. Shweta Chaudhary 378. Team: 1. China 1161; 2. India 1142; 3. Korea 1140.

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