Jitu Rai Finishes Eighth in Men's 10m Air Pistol

Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)/New Delhi, Aug.7 (ANI): India's Shooting campaign at the Rio 2016 Summer Olympic Games got off to a tepid start as Jitu Rai reached the finals of the Men's 10m Air Pistol, but finished eighth on day one of competition at Rio De Janerio's Olympic Shooting Centre located in the Deodoro Park cluster.

Jitu, who once looked out of finals contention with 20 out of the 60 allotted shots remaining, rallied brilliantly at the back end with a flurry of inner 10s to qualify 6th with a score of 580. Pang Wei of China top scored in qualifying with 590 points.

The Gold in the event was won by Vietnam's Xuan Vinh Hong while Brazil's Felipe Alameda Wu won Silver and Pang settled for Bronze. Three-time Olympic Gold medalist Jongoh Jin also finished 5th to be out of medal contention. India's second shooter in the event, Gurpreet Singh finished 20th with a score of 576.

Earlier, in the Women's 10M Air Rifle event, which decided the first set of medals of the 31st Olympic Games, India's Apurvi Chandela and Ayonika Paul finished 34th and 47th with qualifying round scores of 411.6 and 403 respectively.

Day two of the Shooting competition will see India take part in the Women's 10M Air Pistol medal event through Heena Sidhu.