Shooter Satyendra fails to fire in World Cup Men's final

Indias Satyendra Singh reached the finals of the Mens 50-metre Rifle 3 Positions event, only to finish eighth on the concluding day of the third and final stage of the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Rifle/Pistol series here on Tuesday.

India had three finalists in the Gabala World Cup -- Meghana Sajjanar and Pooja Ghatkar being the other two in the Women's 10m Air Rifle, besides Satyendra.

Meghana and Pooja finished fourth and fifth respectively and India could not make it to the medal tally here.

India though won the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team gold, with the pair of Jitu Rai and Heena Sidhu emerging winners in the event which, however, is not being considered for the medal tally at the World Cup stage this year.

The mixed team event is going to be a full-fledged Olympic medal event in the Tokyo 2020 summer Olympics.

Earlier in the day, Satyendra gave a good account of himself, shooting a score of 1,173 to qualify for the eight-man final, in an event considered the most gruelling among all the shooting disciplines.

This was his first ever World Cup final appearance and by far his best ever qualification score.

Satyendra's seasoned compatriot and Olympian Sanjeev Rajput could only manage a score of 1,157 in qualifying and bowed out in 45th place. Satyendra was the first to be eliminated in the final on a score of 396.7 after 40 shots.

Istvan Peni of Hungary won the gold medal with a final round score of 458.4 while Zicheng Hui of China won the silver, and Tomasz Bartnik of Poland settled for the bronze.

--IANS

tri/vt