Indian shooters continued to shine at the 17th Asian Games, clinching the bronze medal in men's 10m air pistol team event, but Jitu Rai could not emulate his golden feat and finished fifth after promising much in the earlier part of the individual finals here today.
Rai's splendid and precise shooting, that helped him garner 585 points and qualify for the medal round with the second-best score of 585 that was just one point behind Kazakhstan's top scorer Rashid Yunusmetov, backed up by Samaresh Jung's 580 (who finished 9th) and Prakash Nanjappa's 578 (14th), albeit with an injured leg, helped India garner 1743 points, the same as second placed China, for the bronze.
In fact, India and China were level on points and the silver was decided by the number of Xs (bullseye) in the tens in which the latter tallied one more - 65 to India's 64.
The gold was won by hosts South Korea with a combined tally of 1744.
The men's trap trio of Mansher Singh, Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Darius Kynan Chenai flopped with all of them finishing outside the top ten.
Mansher secured the 11th position with an aggregate of 117 over two days, Sandhu secured 116 to be 14th while Chenai brought up the rear after logging 108 to end up a distant 36 out of 46 shooters.
Army man Rai, who had provided India with their first gold in the Games on day one of competitions yesterday by winning the 50m title, could not add to his or the country's tally when the eight-man finals took place.
The 50m champion was leading after the sixth of the 20-shot finals in the shorter distance. He was ahead of his renowned Korean rival and eventual gold medallist Kim Cheongyang before slipping to the second spot with his next shot of 9.5.
Rai, who became the first pistol shooter after Jaspal Rana among men to strike gold at the Asian Games, then remained in the second slot behind the host country shooter till the 9th shot and then even jumped to the joint lead when he shot 10.4 to the Korean's 10.3 off the tenth shot.
However, the 11th shot proved to be his undoing as he was off target to log 7.8, which upset his medal chances. He got eliminated after the 14th shot with an aggregate of 138.3.
