Good show by Anjali Vedpathak

NEW DELHI, JUNE 2. Continuing with her brilliant form in recent times, Anjali Vedpathak came up with yet another fine performance to make the air rifle final in the ongoing World Cup shooting championship in Milano, Italy. She, however, had to be eventually content with the eighth spot because of a below par fare in the final.

Looking to impress the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) for the `hardship quota' for the Sydney Olympics, Anjali shot a series of 98, 99, 100 and 99 to make the final with a total of 396 out of 400. She was fifth among the eight finalists, in a field which had two scores of 399, and one each of 398 and 397.

However, in the final, Anjali started poorly by her standards, and had a rather indifferent series of 9.8, 9.6, 10.2, 9.9, 9.7, 10.0, 10.5, 10.5, 10.1, and 10.4 for a total of 100.7, which pushed her to the bottom at 496.7.

Yinghui Zhao of China who shot 399, had a final performance of 103.7 for the gold, as she pipped Sonja Pfeilschifter of Germany by one point for the gold with a total of 502.7.

The 30-year-old Anjali, who had missed the Olympic quota place narrowly during the Asian Championship in Langkawi, had shot impressively and missed the gold by a mere 0.2 points in a Grand Prix in the Czech Republic recently, in which she returned the best score among the finalists, catching up with the eventual gold medallist by 2.8 points.

The other Indians, Deepali Deshpande had scores of 97, 98, 98, 99 for a total of 392 and Suma Dixit shot 99, 97, 97, 95 for 388, but could not join Anjali in the final.

Meanwhile, in the men's air rifle event, Abhinav Bindra shot a total of 590, with a series of 99, 98, 98, 99, 96 and 100. He could not make the final. Among the other Indians, T.C. Palangappa had a score of 585, A.P. Subbiah shot 583 and Dilip Sawant 566.

In air pistol, Ved Prakash came up with the best score among the Indians as he had a series of 96, 96, 94, 95, 99, 99 for a total of 579. Jaspal Rana shot 575 (95, 97, 95, 94, 96, 98) and Samresh Jung 565 (95, 92, 96, 96, 96, 90).

Wang Yifu of China took the gold as he followed his 585 with a 100 in the final, beating Stephane Gagne of France by 0.5 points. The latter shot 99.5 in the final after a similar 585 like the Chinese in the preliminary round.

- Our Special Correspondent

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