ISSF World Cup: Rio bound shooters Jitu Rai, Apurvi Chandela fail to impress

New Delhi: Indian shooters had a dismal day at the ongoing International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup with Rio Olympics hopefuls Jitu Rai, Prakash Nanjappa and Apurvi Chandela failing to enter the finals of their respective categories at Baku, Azerbaijan on Friday. Rio-bound Jitu Rai could not recover from a first 10 shots score of 89, to miss out on a finals berth by a point in the Men’s 50m Pistol. [caption id=“attachment_2855418” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File Photo of Jitu Rai. AP[/caption] The Commonwealth Games gold medalist recovered in the final 50 shots to shoot 466 out of 500, but his poor start meant that he managed a total of 555 out of 600. Two out of the eight finalists made it with scores of 556. Another Rio hopeful, Prakash Nanjappa, shot 552 in the same event to finish in 17th position. Omkar Singh was in 25th place with a score of 549. Day three also saw the first precision leg of the Women’s 25m Pistol event, where India’s Heena Sidhu registered the highest score of 296 out of 300. Anisa Sayyed with 283 and Surbhi Pathak with 280 were quite a distance behind. Heena will be shooting the Rapid Fire Stage on day four, hoping to make it to the finals. India’s Pooja Ghatkar registered her second 4th place finish of the year in a World Cup stage on day three. Competing in the Women’s 10m Air Rifle event, Pooja reached the eight-woman final in seventh position with a score of 417.0. Till the 14th shot of the 20 shot final, Pooja looked to be headed towards a first-ever World Cup medal, when she was in firm third-place, 0.7 points clear of her fourth placed rival from Korea, Hae Mi Park. A 9.6 in the 15th shot to Park’s 10.0 meant the gap had closed to just 0.3. Park’s 16th shot came in at 10.8 to Pooja’s 10.3, which meant that she lost out on the Bronze by a mere 0.2 points to be eliminated. The Gold in the event went to China’s Bei Du while countrywoman Mengyao Shi won the silver. Hae Mi Park settled for the Bronze. Anjum Moudgil of India, narrowly missed the final, shooting a score of 416.4 to finish in ninth place on countback. Rio bound Apurvi Chandela however, was off colour shooting a total of 411.7 to end in 42nd place.