Anjali ends challenge, Polish woman gets gold

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Sydney: Anjali Vedpathak, looking rather satisfied at her eighth place finish in the women's Air Rifle 10 metres finish on her Olympic debut decided to go ahead with her participation in the women's 50m rifle 3-position, too.

The 30-year-Mumbai woman, who was on a high in Air Rifle, was however unable to repeat her performance, as she finished way down in the 33rd position with a score of 566 out of 600.

In the three-position event, all shooters go through two cards of 10 shots - 200 points - each in three positions, prone, standing and kneeling. For Anjali, the first segment of prone went through fine, as she registered 196 with identical cards of 98 each.

But in Standing and then kneeling she managed only 185 each. In standing her two cards read 92 and 93 and they were the same in kneeling too. Sonja Pfeilschifter of Germany, who was disappointed with her fifth place finish in the 10m Air Rifle, seemed to be making up in this as she was the leading qualifier.

She began with a perfect 200 in prone and followed that with a somewhat indifferent 188 in standing and then closed her turn with 197 in kneeling, which saw her carding 99 and 98. Her 585 out of 600 was the same as two others Tatiana Goldobina of Russia and Renata Mauer-Rozanska of Poland.

But when it came to the final Sonja was once again found wanting. In the final she shot two poor shots of 7.9 and 7.4 on the seventh and ninth and that ended her chances. She finished the final with a poor 93.5 and Renata Mauer-Rozanska registered 99.6 to total 684.6 and grab the gold.

Tatiana Goldobina was second with 680.9 and Maria Feklistova of Russia third with 679.9, while Sonja was fourth and out of the medals with 678.5.

India Abroad News Service