Mairaj narrowly misses bronze at ISSF Shotgun World Cup

After a distant ninth place finish at the Rio Olympics, India's Mairaj Ahmad Khan came good at the season-ending International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Finals for Shotgun where he narrowly missed a medal in the men's Skeet event to finish fourth here.

Egypt's Azmy Mehelba edged past Mairaj 15-14 to bag the bronze medal in a closely contested affair on Thursday.

The gold went to Nikolay Teplyy of Russia, while Mikola Milchev of Ukraine won the Silver in an event where both the Rio Olympic champion Gabriele Rossetti of Italy and bronze medallist Abdullah Alrashidi of Kuwait, were humbled.

Mairaj qualified for the semi-final competition stage after shooting 118 in the qualifying event. He then hit 15 of the designated 16 targets to be tied with four others and a chance to qualify for the gold medal match.

In the shoot-off that followed, while Azmy lost out early to qualify for the bronze medal match, Mairaj fought tooth and nail with Nikolay and Mikola before missing the 12th target which the gold-silver duo did not. In the bronze medal match, Azmy missed only one target while Mairaj missed two to settle for fourth.

--IANS

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