Rathore in double trap

Misses gold medal because of slow birds, invites organisers8217; wrath

India won two more medals, silver and bronze, both in double-trap, at the Lusail shooting range here today, and immediately after his third place effort, Olympic silver medallist Rajyavardhan Sigh Rathore hit out against the organisers, saying there was a 8220;conspiracy8221; to not let shooters from the sub-continent shine at the 15th Asian Games. The individual and the team gold went to China, while the team bronze was claimed by Taipei.

His allegation stemmed from the fact that one particular station as firing 8216;birds8217; at a much lesser velocity than the rest. And Rathore was at that station. 8220;The conditions today were perfect, no wind and no other disturbance. Under such conditions, the standard for a 8216;bird8217; to fall is 55m. Instead, 8216;birds8217; from this station were falling at 45m or so. That is pretty slow.

8220;Double trap is a very precision shooting event and you have less than half a second to adjust after the first one. A difference like that makes it very difficult or a shooter to adjust and hence my second round was poor,8221; he told this daily.

The final was a different story, with Rathore missing only three shots against Chinese champion Nan Wang8217;s five. 8220;It, I think, was a great effort on my part, and a brave thing to do to have been able to come back so strongly after such a setback and I think I have done well.8221;

But why would there be a conspiracy? 8220;I believe they organising Qataris aren8217;t very keen to have the best medals in shooting go to the sub-continent and hence this mix-up. I would like to show them a thing or two,8221; Rathore said. 8220;Probably this bile erupts from an allegation that he had earlier in the week been denied access during training by the organisers.8221;

National Rifle Association of India NRAI president Digvijay Singh, though was more diplomatic in his approach to the issue. 8220;Yes, there was a problem and they accepted it and later corrected it,8221; he said. 8220;Of course, I believe the fault lies with Rathore too. The stations are fired and shown to the competitors during early practice. He should have protested then. That would not have created this confusion and would have given us gold in the process.8221;

In the final Rathore shot 46, for a total of 185, against Wang8217;s 45 and 189 and silver winner Binyuan Hu8217;s China 45 and 188. Rathore8217;s final shots were 46, 43, 50 against Wang8217;s 48, 48, 48 and Hu8217;s 49, 46, 48. that, presumably, was after the 8216;correction8217;. Rathore8217;s coach Dradi Marcello poohpooohed the situation: 8220;Look, last time, we won one medal and we had a big party. This time already we have a number of medals. So let8217;s say we are happy, and these things keep happening.8221; Abdullah al Hamadi, operations manager of the range, said: 8220;There as nothing wrong with the range. All was checked.8221;

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Qualifying, Rathore was third, with a disastrous second round of 43. preceded by 346 and ending on 50. The Chinese, with 424, also set up an Asian record in the title win. Other members of the silver winning double trap team were Ranjan Sodhi 136 and Vikram Bhatnagar 134.