Shooters badly off target

Bangkok, Dec 8: The skeet trio of Rao Inderjeet Singh, Harinder Singh Bedi and Rahul Rai came in the 10th and last in the team event this...

Bangkok, Dec 8: The skeet trio of Rao Inderjeet Singh, Harinder Singh Bedi and Rahul Rai came in the 10th and last in the team event this morning at the Hua Mark Shooting Range.

Rao Inderjeet Singh was the best of the lot in the 19th place with 112 points. Bedi shot 106 for the 30th spot and Rai was 35th and last among the finishers with 98; a score winner Sergy Yakshin would have bettered even if one entire card of 25 shots were to be discarded.

The Indians, with a total of 316, finished last as Kyrghistan did not shoot while Kuwait won with a total of 356, which was 40 points better than the Indians. That gap may well have been bigger but for the three-point penalty Kuwait8217;s third shooter Salah al Mutairi incurred which also cost him a possible place in the final six.

Meanwhwile, the Chinese managed only one of the six gold medals available on the day as gold medallist Sergy Yakshin of Kazhakstan shot a near perfect 124 in the preliminary and then added a perfect card to total 149, to equal the Asianrecord. Kuwaiti Abdullah al-Rashidi, who has the world record of 125 in preliminary, achieved in Lima in 1997, was second with 145 made up of 121 in preliminary and 24 in the final. He won a tie shot with Li Xu, who had the same score.

Kuwait8217;s winning trio comprised Abdullah al-Rashidi 121, Tami al-Rashidi 119 and Salah al-Mutairi 116 who totalled 356. China took the silver with 355 and Kazhakstan, riding on Yakshin8217;s brilliant 124, got the bronze despite their third shooter Ivan Struchayev scoring only 110 and ending in the 25th place.

In the team Free Rifle prone, consistent Thailand struck gold with 1,758 points, while Kyrghistan got the silver with 1,752 and China the bronze with 1,751. In individual, Turkmenistan8217;s lone entrant, Igor Pirekeev, grabbed the gold with 593 in preliminary and 104.2 in final for a total of 697.2. Thai T Majcharcheep took the silver with 693.3 and Naoki Kurita of Japan with 691.1 was third.

In women8217;s air pistol team event, the China struck their lone goal of theday with Cai Yeqin 388, Jie Ren 387 and Tao Luna 376 totalling 1,151. The Kazhaks, spearheaded by individual gold meallist Dina Aspandiyarov 389, took the silver with 1,148. Korea were third with 1,133. Behind Aspandiyarova who won the gold were Cai Yeqin and Ren Jie.