Shooting World Cup: Jitu lands bronze after fightback

New Delhi: Ace pistol shooter Jitu Rai staged a laudable comeback to clinch the bronze medal in the 10m air pistol event for India’s third podium finish on the fifth day of the ISSF World Cup here on Wednesday.

The 29-year-old finished behind reigning Olympic champion Xuan Vinh Hoang of Vietnam who took silver. Former world champion Japan’s Tomoyuki Matsuda won gold.

It was India’s third medal in the competition and their tally of one silver and two bronzes puts them fifth in the standings behind China, Italy, Australia and Japan.

Jitu, who in the last three years has won a medal in every global and continental championship barring the Olympics, including an Asian Games gold, a World Championship silver and a World Cup Finals silver apart from two World Cup golds, qualified for the eight-man final in sixth place, shooting 577 in the allotted 60 shots.

He started poorly in the final round, shooting a couple of 9s and an 8.8 in the first five shot series and was set to be the first to be eliminated. But a fine fightback saw him gain places rapidly towards the end with five scores of 10s or high 10s between the 15th and the 20th shots.

Jitu rose to second at the end of the 21st shot but an 8.6 in his 22nd attempt meant he had to settle for the bronze.

Tomoyuki shot 240.1 to emerge first place, Xuan Vinh Hoang shot 236.6 and Jitu managed 216.7.

In the second event of the day, Chain Singh finished seventh (141.9) in the final of the men’s 50m rifle prone category.