Big guns fall silent

It also meant India would miss out on the second quota place. Ronjon Singh Sodhi has earned a London 2012 berth in the double trap event. Starting off by shooting 48 targets in the first round,Rathore slipped badly in the next,shooting 41 of the 50 targets as the wind picked up. The poor second round virtually ruled him out of the equation.

He dropped four targets in the third and final qualifying round to finish on 135. If he had shot one more clay pigeon,Rathore could have been involved in a three-way battle to earn the last and sixth place in the final. But the shoot-off happened between Chinas Li Jun and South Koreas Hongjae Chun,with the former advancing to the final.

It was heartbreak for Rathores team mate Mohammad Asab too as he was stuck on an identical score of 135. Unlike Rathore,Asab had a bad first round,where he shot a lowly 43,but recovered well to hit 46 in the next two rounds.

UAEs Juma Al-Makhtoum won the gold with a total of 181,followed by Fehaid Al-Deehani of Kuwait 180 and UAEs Saif Al-Shamsy.

World No.2 Ronjan Sodhi also didnt make the cut for the double trap final. Sodhi was in the running after two rounds of 46. Sodhi had a horror final round,where he dropped eight targets to finish 14th overall with a total of 134. The combined total of 404,shot by Sodhi,Rathore and Asab was good enough to earn India a team bronze.

UAE won the gold and Kuwait finished second. Talking after the event,Rathore said he had no regrets.

This was always going to be touch and go. 139 was leading,136 was the last man in. I scored 135. I left it too late. If you leave qualification to the last it will always be like this, he said.

Rathore said that he blew his chances in the second round. You see,of the first nine targets I missed five. The wind was strong and it was making the gun move, Rathore said.

Rathore admitted that he left himself with too little time to build-up to the Olympics after only returning to action at the Nationals last year following a self-imposed break after having differences with the National Rifle Association of India over its selection policy.

In the last three months I have been shooting high scores. One of the reasons I wanted to really shoot high scores was to prove to people that I am capable of shooting high scores. Some people have been saying that the level of competition was not high in Athens and that you guys shot low scores. So in this context it was very satisfying to be able to shoot a very high score,which was a world record 148 in the Asian Shotgun,November 2011, Rathore said.

But missing out on a quota place for London will remain a disappointment for Rathore. Though he may not have said it in as many words.