So near yet so far! What could have been India’s second gold medal in the 17th Asian Games, got stymied into silver as Vijay Kumar erred in his last shot.
Had he hit a perfect 10, India’s 25m centre pistol team would have finished ahead of China on inner-10 count but it was only an eight-pointer that Vijay finally managed.
The 2012 Olympic silver medalist trio — Vijay, Pemba Tamang and Gurpreet Singh — shot a total of 1740 and finished second behind China at the Ongnyeon International Shooting Range here on Friday.
“I shot well throughout the day. It was a little disappointing to get an eight on the last shot but that is fairly common in shooting because you can get a bad shot any time,” Vijay, who is troubled by cervical spondylitis, said after the event.
He had been experiencing pain in his neck for quite sometime. Around two months back, he was told by his doctor that there was a minor sprain in his cervical bone.
“I am not fully fit and I couldn’t train properly because of this cervical problem. I have been asked to refrain from putting strain on my body. The doctor has advised me to undergo a minor surgery but for that I will have to stop shooting and all physical activities for at least 20 days.
“Now that all the major tournaments are over, I will have time to rest. Once I am back in India, I will consult doctors and get this rectified,” Vijay said.
It was India’s eighth medal in shooting at Incheon with one gold, 2 silver and 5 bronze. It also equalled their medals tally of 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games where they had won an extra silver medal. So far, only Jitu Rai has won a gold medal for India.
On Friday, it was Tamang who led the team to second place with a total score of 581 out of maximum 600. He was off the mark in precision (288) but shot well in the rapid fire round (293). His 581 gave him 8th spot in the individual category.
Similarly, Vijay (579), too, did well in rapid fire shooting 294 but his precision round was awful (285).
In contrast, Gurpreet (580) did well in precision with 292 but he fared badly in rapid fire and collected just 288 points.
“We missed the bronze medal in the 25m standard pistol on inner-10 counts. I’m very happy that today we were able to win silver,” the 34-year-old Tamang said.
lajja loses: lajja Goswami did well in the 50m rifle 3 positions qualification round to finish fourth and enter the individual finals. But she couldn’t better her performance in the finals bowed out in the first elimination round after 40 shots scoring just 401.6.
As a team, India could have won a medal had lajja’s teammates Anjali Bhagwat and Tejaswini Muley – shot better. The 44-year-old Bhagwat shot 572 and Muley 568 to end up 25th and 29th, respectively.