India were left without a medal in the sport of shooting for the first time since the 2004 Athens Olympics as shooters Gagan Narang and Chain Singh failed to book their place in the final round of the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions event held at the Olympic Shooting Centre in Rio De Janeiro. The former ended up at the 33rd spot with a tally of 1162 points from his qualification round whereas the latter managed a tally of 1169 points to finish at the 23rd position which was not enough to secure them a place in the final round. It was a very well fought battle between the 44 shooters who took part in the event and the Indians must be credited for their fine performance even though they failed to progress.
It was Chain Singh who started the event for India as he shot impressively in his first series of the kneeling stage with 98 points. However, his second of the four series in the kneeling position saw him accumulate a poor 95 points which took him to the 37th spot in the rankings. But the third series for the shooter was great as he fired 99 points taking him to the 20th spot. Chain continued his good form and scored another 99 points to finish the kneeling stage with a tally of 391 points at the 20th spot.
The 27-year old needed another great performance from the prone stage if he had to qualify for the final round. He showed signs of determination as he started the prone stage with a perfect 100 points in his first series. The shooter had finally started hitting well as he struck another perfect 100 in his second series of the prone stage, placing him at the 16th spot in the rankings. Singh turned on the heat as he shot another 100 points in his third series, which saw him climb up to the 11th position in the table. It was some great accurate shooting from the Indian and he continued his form in his fourth series as he scored 98 points. The shooter ended the prone stage with an impressive 398 points out of 400 and occupied the 10th spot in the rankings.
Chain needed another top performance in the standing stage if he had to qualify for the final round. The shooter could not continue his stunning form as he fired a total of 95 and 94 points from his first two series of standing stage, which saw him drop to 12th spot in the rankings. His drop in points cost the shooter a spot in the final round as he scored 96 points from his third series, bringing him down to the 16th spot. Even a perfect 100 in the last series would see Chain getting eliminated in what was an inspiring event for the 27-year old. He saw himself drop tremendously in the fourth and last series with a score of only 95 points to finish at the 23rd spot in the table.
Poor day for Gagan
On the other hand, Gagan Narang started the event on the back foot as he managed 97 points each from his first series and the second series of the kneeling stage. His third series was also disappointing as he fired only 96 points which saw him drop drastically to the 39th spot out of the total 44 shooters. The shooter needed to finish the kneeling stage at a high but the exact opposite happened as Narang got only 93 points from his fourth series – placing him at the 42nd spot with 383 points.
The 33-year old shooter had to show his experience if he had any chance of making it to the final round and he did improve by scoring 99 points in his first series of the prone stage. The second series also saw Narang score 99 points, lifting him up to 36th in the table. The experienced shooter got another 99 points in his third series of the prone stage which was not enough to see him climb in the table. Another 98 points from his fourth and last series of the prone stage saw the shooter occupy his beloved 36th position as he could only manage a total of 395 points out of 400 while his fellow shooters were firing 400 points for fun.
Narang’s journey at Rio 2016 looked over as even a perfect 400 points in the standing stage would not have taken the shooter into the top-8. However, the 33-year old started the first series of the standing stage with 98 points. His improvement could not last much longer as the shooter shot only 93 points from his second standing series which kept him lagging behind at 35th spot. A disappointing end to the Games for Narang saw him shoot another 95 points in vain in his third series. 98 points in his fourth and final series led to the shooter finishing at the 33rd spot overall.
Here is the list of the top-8 athletes who have qualified for the final round which takes place at 9 PM IST:
Sergey Kamenskiy (Russia) – 1184-67x
Daniel Brodmeier (Germany) – 1177-57x
Ole Kristian Bryhn (Norway) – 1177-56x
Qinan Zhu (China) – 1176-65x
Alexis Raynaud (France) – 1176-63x
Fedor Vlasov (Russia) – 1176-58x
Andre Link (Germany) – 1174-62x
Niccolo Campriani (Italy) – 1174-62x
