Gurpreet, Rajput win silver medals

Shooter Harpreet Singh survived two rounds of a nerve-wracking shoot-off and brushed aside a penalty point docked on him to claim silver in the men’s 25M rapid fire pistol event of the Commonwealth Games here on Tuesday.

Harpreet, 33, from Haryana, saved India’s blushes by bagging the silver after Olympic silver medallist Vijay Kumar failed to qualify for the final round after finishing seventh in the qualification round at the Barry Buddon Shooting Center.

Harpreet, who topped the qualification round, shot 21 to Australian David Chapman’s 23 in the final. Canada’s Metodi Igorov bagged the bronze after a shoot-off.
In more good news, the Indian shooting contingent returned with three more medals apart from Harpreet’s silver.

While Sanjeev Rajput claimed the second place in the men’s 50M rifle 3-positions event with a total of 446.9, Gagan Narang pocketed the bronze with a tally of 436.8.
Narang looked out of contention after kneeling and the prone segments but fought back superbly in standing to claim the third place.

Earlier on Tuesday, Manavjit Sandhu beat veteran Australian Michael Diamond to finish third in the bronze medal match in the trap event. 

Manavjit finished third in the semifinals after hitting 13 of the maximum 15 targets.
The other Indian in the fray, Mansher Singh was sixth and last in the semifinals as he hit just 11 of the 15 targets. In the third-place match, both Manavjit and Diamond hit 11 targets out of the 15.

It required a ‘shoot-off’ where the Indian was on target to clinch a podium finish for the country.

Penalty decision

Harpreet jumped to the lead in the third round after hitting four targets out of five and kept the lead intact till the end of the fifth round before disaster struck in the next round.
The Karnal shooter, who was leading by two hits, was docked a penalty of one on account of delay in firing the shot.

After that, Harpreet clawed his way back into the encounter and just as he was poised to take the gold, he faltered in the final round hitting just two targets while Chapman hit four targets to clinch the gold.

Speaking after the silver medal, Harpreet  said the ‘faulty lighting system’ cost him the gold medal.

“There was problem in the lighting system. Because of the faulty lighting, the first shot was delayed and because of that my fifth shot was out of time and I had to be docked a penalty point. That made the difference. Had it not been that, I would have been in a better position to win the gold,” a visibly disappointed Harpreet said after the event.

“I made a complaint but the judges said it was okay. So I cannot do anything. There was pressure on me after that.”

A shooter gets four seconds after the red light on the target turns green, signalling to shoot.