Gorkha Shooter Jitu Rai wins Bronze medal in 10m Air Pistol at Shooting World Cup 2017

New Delhi : Gorkha Shooter Jitu Rai won a bronze medal in the 10m Air Pistol category to stand on the podium once again at the Shooting World Cup underway at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range in the capital. With a final score of 216.7 and shots of 9.9 and 8.6, he couldn’t take himself into the tussle for the gold medal which went to Tomoyuki Matsuda of Japan (240.1) and the silver medal to Xuan Vinh Hoang of Vietnam (236.6). It is almost a miracle that Jitu finished with a medal and not further down the ranks with poor shots such as just the 8.8 on the second attempt. 

Luck shone his way with the other competitors not doing better to push him by the wayside. Jitu had qualified sixth earlier in the day in the qualifying rounds with the Vietnamese Vinh Hoang finishing top of the pile then. Other Indians in the fray were Omkar Singh and Amanpreet Singh who couldn’t make it to the finals as only the top-8 qualify with the duo finishing 14th and 19th respectively.

Rai had won the mixed team event gold on Monday in a demonstration event alongside Heena Sidhu in the same category. But considering it is only a test event at the moment, the medal won’t be added to India’s tally. The previous medals for India have been bronze for Pooja Ghatkar in Women’s 10m Air Rifle and Ankur Mittal winning silver medal in Men’s Double Trap event. India stand fifth in the medal’s tally with one silver and two bronze medals while China lead the charts with six golds and four silvers followed by Australia who have won two gold medals.