Jitu Rai shoots World Championships silver

Jitu Rai put on a stunning show at the 51st ISSF World Championships here Tuesday winning the silver medal in the men's 50m pistol event and also became the first Indian shooter to book a berth for the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Jitu, a Commonwealth Games gold medallist, shot a total of 191.1 to fetch the silver while the gold went to South Korean Jin Jongh (192.3). Chinese shooter Pang Wei (172.6) settled for the bronze.

Jitu had finished third in the qualifying round with a score of 565, that included 15x, while Jin topped the round with a world record score of 583.

The 27-year-old Jitu was in great form in the final round and had only four poor shots. He was right on top after the first three shots and what followed next was neck-and-neck battle with Jong for the gold medal, that finally went to the Korean.

Other Indians in the fray in the 50m pistol event, Gurpal Singh and Om Prakash, failed to qualify for the final round after a poor show in the qualifying. Gurpal finished 33rd while Om Prakash was 38th.

India are also expecting two more medals from youngster Ayonika Paul, who topped the qualifying round in the women's 10m air pistol event, and former world champion Manavjit Singh Sandhu, who shot a perfect 100 in the men's trap in the qualifying round and was joint first with Englishman Ling Edward.

Sandhu's compatriot and former junior world champion Kynan Chenai, however, failed to qualify for the final round as he finished 72nd with a score of 94 while Prithviraj Tondaiman was 78th with a similar score.

Earlier, Indian shooters put up a disappointing show with Olympic gold champion Abhinav Bindra failing to qualify for the finals of men's 10m air rifle event. The 2008 Beijing Olympic gold medallist missed the cut as he finished 10th in qualification relay 1. Besides Bindra, Sanjeev Rajput finished 13th while Ravi Kumar was a disappointing 31st.

A total of 64 quota places for the 2016 Olympic Games are up grabs from the World Championships, in which 2,000 athletes from around 100 countries in more than 50 events participated.