Indian shooter Jitu Rai took a big step towards exorcising the demons of the 2016 Rio Olympics by winning a silver medal at the ISSF World Cup in Bologna, Italy, in the Men’s 50m Pistol event. Shooting quite brilliantly, Rai stood second behind China’s Pang Wei, who ended up with a score of 190.6 in the final as compared to 188.8 shot by the Indian. Giuseppe Giordano of Italy took home bronze with a score of 170.3 in the final.
Participating in the Men’s 50m Pistol event, Rai was up against familiar foes Zhiwei Wang, Oleh Omelchuk, Pablo Carrera and Pang Wei. The Indian, who had missed out on a medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics, produced a stellar performance in the qualifying round to storm into the final by scoring 568 out of a possible 600. His scores in round one to six were – 97/100, 94/100, 94/100, 95/100, 93/100 and 96/100, finishing behind Omelchuk from Ukraine, who brought his A game to the range in Italy.
Jitu started the final with two stunning shots of 10.6 and 10.3 but slipped in the third one (9.2). As the final progressed, Jitu raised the level of his game and surged towards a medal spot. Pang Wei from China shot even better and the two were separated by a little under 4 points before the final set of shots. Though Jitu shot significantly better than Wei in the final set (18.4 as compared to Wei’s 16.5), the Chinese had done enough to secure a gold for himself.
More to follow.
