Indians off target

MILAN, JUNE 2. Olympic finalist Anjali Vedpathak, put up a good show in the women's 50-metre Rifle Three Position event even as other Indians failed to impress, on the third day of the ISSF Shooting World Cup here on Friday.

National Air Rifle champion Anjali aggregated 569 out of 600 in the three disciplines of the event and was tied for the 14th place with Martina Prekel of Germany. There were 64 shooters in the fray.

Considering her inexperience in the Rifle Three Position event, Anjali's performance should boost her confidence. She was five points behind the last shooter, Croatia's Suzana Cimbal, who made it to the final eight. Anjali shot 96 and 96 in the prone, 93 and 93 in the stand, and 96 and 95 in the kneeling for her tally of 569. Kuheli Gangulee took the 34th position with a score of 562. She scored 192 (96, 96) in the prone, 188 (94, 94) in the stand and 182 (90, 92) in the kneeling. Junior shooter Meena Kumari was tied for the 38th placing with Elisabeth Pfoestl of Italy at 560 points.

Switzerland's Gaby Buehlmann (582 and 98.9) won the gold medal with a total of 680.9 while Belarus' Volha Pahrebniak settled for silver as she shot poorly in the final round. Having tied with Gaby after the preliminary round, Volha came up with 95.2 in the final.

In the Minimum Qualifying Score (MQS) event, Anuja Tere of India posted an aggregate of 564 impressing the Indian camp. Anuja had scores of 195 (97, 98), 180 (88, 92) and 189 (94, 95) in the prone, stand and kneeling events respectively. Indians struggled in the 25 metre Pistol for women with Sonia Rana taking a joint 32nd position with two others. Sonia had a total score of 559 out of 600. She shot 95, 93, 97, 92, 97, 85 in the six preliminary rounds.

Saroja Kumari Juthu (92, 93, 96, 93, 89, 92) was placed 37th with a total of 555, and Shweta Chaudhary (90, 92, 97, 91, 91, 91) totalled 552 and a joint 40th position with Luisa Maida of Spain.

Julita Macur of Poland won the gold medal with a total of 685.4 (582 and 103.4) edging past Nino Salukvadze of Georgia 683.3 (583 and 100.3). Olena Kostevych of Ukraine aggregated 680.5 (581 and 99.5) and had to settle for bronze.

Following her 10th place finish in the 10 metre Air Pistol on Thursday, Shilpi Singh continued the good work. In the MQS event for 25m Pistol, Shilpi garnered 555 points with scores of 96, 96, 95, 91, 89, 88.

P. Subbiah barely managed to proceed into the Match round, qualifying from the second elimination round of the men's 50 metre Rifle Prone. Subbiah finished joint 50th with two others - Sergey Belyaev of Kazakhstan and Vlastimil Veselka of Slovakia - with an aggregate of 584 in the match round. Subbiah shot 95, 98, 97, 99, 97, 98, but it was two points lower than his scores in the elimination round where he had scores of 99, 98, 97, 97, 97, 98 and held joint 23rd position with three others.

The other Indian in the fray, Neeraj Kumar, however, bowed out in the elimination round itself.

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