JOIN USIndia’s P N Prakash won the bronze medal in the men’s 10-metre air pistol event at the ISSF World Cup here on Saturday.
Prakash shot 180.2 points after out-doing 2010 World Champion Tomoyuki Matsuda of Japan, who finished fourth with 158.7 points.
This is Prakash’s first ever medal in an ISSF competition. He had also finished in the spotlight two days ago, when he ended eighth in the men’s 50-metre pistol men’s final. The 37-year-old shooter from Bangalore had never made it to a final round before.
Another Indian shooter to give an impressive performance in the same event was Jiturai who finished seventh with a score of 97.4.
The gold was won by Vietnam’s Xuan Vinh Hoang. The 38-year old Vietnamese shooter climbed up the final scoreboard, shooting neck-and-neck against China’s Wang Zhiwei, the 2012 Olympic bronze medallist. The two contenders fought right to the last shot when Xuan secured the gold with a total score of 200.8 points to Zhiwei’s 200.1.
The new final match starts off with two series of three shots. Then, the final proceed with single shots. Starting from the eighth shot, and then after every two shots, the athlete with the lowest score is eliminated, until the medals are decided. The final match ends up with two shooters on the line, duelling for the gold on the last two shots.
Hoang had placed in fourth at the 2012 Olympic Games competing in the 50M pistol event, finishing only 0.1 points far form the podium. There, shooting with the old rules, he had paid the price for a lower qualification score. Under the new rules, scores in the qualification round are not carried forward to the final.
The first two shooters to be eliminated in the final were Jiturai and China’s Mai Jiajie, who took the seventh and eighth place with 97.4 and 77.1 points, respectively.