Manavjit wins two silver for India in Trap, Jung fails to qualify

Doha, Dec 3 (UNI) Heavy winds blew away world champion Manavjit Sandhu's chances of a Gold and the Indian settled for two Silver medals in the individual and team trap events of the shooting competition at Lusail Range in the Asian Games here today.

It was a better showing by the Indians compared to the Busan Asiad where they had won only one silver in Trap team event.

''But, I was expecting even better here because we had trained and prepared very hard,'' Manavjit later told UNI.

Manavjit was involved in a neck-and-neck battle with Kuwait's Naser Meqlad in the individual finals in which compatriot Anwar Sultan had also qualified.

Naser and Manavjit made it to the final with a score of 114 and 113 respectively and in the 25 shot final both were levelled at 125 each at one stage. But then heavy wind and slight lack of concentration saw Manavjit missing his target twice which made all the difference as Naser never looked back after that.

Manavjit missed eight targets in the final and ended with 17 points to take his overall total to 130. Naser shot 19 out of 25 to take his total to 133 which was enough for him to claim the gold.

Manavjit was three points behind the Kuwait shooter and had to be satisfied with a silver while another Kuwaiti Khaled Almudhaf took the bronze with 128 (20,108). Anwar Sultan finished last in the six-man field with 122 (12,110).

The second day's shooting proceedings started rather ominously for India as the trio of Samresh Jung, Ronaq Pandit and Deepak Sharma failed miserably in the men's air pistol event, giving a below par display to drop out of contention in the qualificayion itself.

In the trap team events, the Indian trio of Manavjit, Anwar Sultan and Mansher Singh, who led the field yesterday, slipped this morning but were lucky as Lebanon failed even more miserably missing as many as 11 shots and allowed the Indians to clinch the Silver.

India had finished the first day with a score of 197, with Manavjit at 70, Anwar Sultan on 65 and Mansher at 62.

This morning, it was veteran Mansher who flopped and his poor show cost India dearly. He could not qualify for the Individual finals.

Mansher shot 19 and 18 in his two rounds of 25 each and aggregated a poor 99 (62,37) as India looked in danger of missing even a silver.

However, Anwar Sultan shot 45 (23,22) to take his total to 110 (65,45) and Manavjit shot 43 (22,21) for his total of 113 (0,43) as the team total aggregated to 322 which was five points less then Kuwait, which won the Gold with 327.

It was Lebanon which came to the rescue of India as their shooters missed targets galore and ended six points behind India at 316 for a bronze.

At one stage Lebanese shooters were five points ahead of India but then muffed 11 shots.

But the biggest disappointment for the Indians came in the Men's 10m Air Pistol event in which all three -- Samresh Jung, Deepak Sharma and Ronaq Pandit failed to make the cut for final. Commonwealth Games hero Samresh Jung gave a much blow par performance as he shot 576 to be placed at 11th slot. Deepak Sharma with 571 was 22nd and Ronak Pandit with 565 was placed 33rd.

''It was a disastrous display by the shooters, no body shot well and they failed to make it to even team's final'' said coach Sunny Thomas.

''I am surprised at Samresh' performance. He has been shooting very well recently and I was banking on him. Deepak Sharma is not very experienced but even experienced Ronak Pandit gave a dimal dslay,'' Thomas added.

Jung had series of 94,97,97,95,96,97 while Sharma shot 96,96,92,97,96,94 and Pandit cam up with 97,95,90,95,93,93.

China's Zongliang Tan led the six- hooters field In the final with a score of 588, followed by North Korea's Jong Su Kim (584), South Korea's Oh Jong Jin (583), Zhongzaig Lin of China (582), Daemyung Li of South Korea (582) and Rashid Ynmov Rashid of Kazhakistan (580).

After finishing his even Manavjit said he was offering no excuse but said ''the strong winds made lot of difference, in fact it changed the outcome.'' ''We had been preparing and training for the whole year and there were some tiredness also,'' he added.

UNI