Pistol shooter Jitu Rai capped a wonderful week, finishing second in the 50 metre event at the ISSF World Cup in Maribor, Slovenia, on Monday. This was his second successive medal after winning the silver in the 10m air pistol event at the World Cup in Munich last week. However, the result that had the leading women of the rifle team — Anjali Bhagwat and Suma Shirur — gushing, had come a day earlier. A bronze medal, won by 21-year-old Ayonika Paul, in the 10 metre air rifle event had ended a decade of near misses for the women’s team. It was the first time an Indian woman was standing on the podium after Anjali’s gold medal in the 2003 World Cup Finals held in Munich. Between 2002-2004, Anjali won five world cup medals and Suma equalled the 40m air rifle world record with a score of 502.3 in Kuala Lumpur in 2004. There were also numerous appearances in the finals of events. Since then though, the fortunes of the women’s team were in a downward spiral, bottoming when India failed to win the individual gold medal at the 2010 CWG and had no representative in the 10m air rifle event at the 2012 Olympics Games. Those days though are behind them. ‘WAIT IS OVER’ Ayonika, third after the qualification round with a total of of 417.3 points, won her maiden ISSF medal with a score of 185.3 in the final. The gold was won by China’s 2012 Olympic Champion, Yi Siling, followed by teammate Wu Liuxi. “It is a relief more than anything else,” Suma said. “It was disheartening to see we had no shooter at the London Olympics. “ While Anjali and Suma stood tall, the ones who followed showed early promise before fading away. “We were lucky that we had three years of streamlined training under Laszlo Szucsak and the performances showed,” Suma said. “Training had become irregular by the time Avneet Kaur Sishu and Tejaswani Sawant came. Lazlo had left. We had no camps for a year and struggled for ammunition. I think this played a part. Thankfully, the wait is over.” Now that the wait for an elusive medal is over, Anjali, currently out of the team, says that it will be interesting to see how other young talents like Pooja Ghatkar, Apurvi Chandela, Shriyanka Sadangi and Mampi Das, go about claiming their spots among the world elite. “I am happy for Ayonika,” Anjali said. “But we have other young shooters itching to get into the team. These girls have even taken the top three positions during the trials, so I am hopeful.” JITU ON THE PODIUM Jitu Rai bagged silver in the 50m pistol category, finishing second behind Serbia’s Damir Mekic on Monday. Rai was second in qualifying with 568 points. The 28-year-old junior commissioned officer from the Army had to settle for second after he was narrowly pipped — by .01 point — by Mekic who shot a total of 194 points to Rai’s 193.9. Rai had won the silver medal at the Munich World Cup in the 10m air pistol category last week.
