Incheon:
Star Indian shooter Abhinav Bindra today broke his Asian Games jinx by clinching his first individual medal - a bronze - in the men’s 10m air rifle and then said it could be his last major international competition as he has decided to become a hobby shooter from now on.
The 2008 Olympic gold medal winner, who powered the country to the team bronze in the company of teammates Sanjeev Rajput and Ravi Kumar earlier while qualifying for the finals with the fifth-best score, kept his cool in the face of stiff challenge in the eight-man finals before being eliminated after the 18th shot when his total score read 187.1 to take the bronze.
The Glasgow Commonwealth Games gold medallist had a fine sequence of scores barring 9.9 and 9.6 on his 6th and 12th shots, and had to be content with the bronze medal after shooting 10.6 and 10.7 in his last two shots.
The gold medal was won by 18-year-old Chinese sensation Yang Haoran who came into the tournament as the clear favourite after winning the world title at Granada, Spain just prior to the Games.
The reigning Asian champion and World Cup final winner of 2013 tallied 209.6 to push teammate and defending champion Cao Yifei, who aggregated 208.9, to the silver.
Bindra later told waiting reporters that he will only be a hobby shooter after today but will still strive to qualify for the Rio Olympic Games in that capacity.
“I am very happy with the medal. I shot very well. From now onwards I am going to be a hobby shooter, training twice a week only. I will still take part in the qualification trials,” he said.
In trap women’s team finals, India’s Shreyasi Singh (66 pts) Seema Tomar (63) and Shagun Chowdhary (59) finished at eighth place after scoring a total of 188.
In men’s 25-m rapidfire pistol event, Harpreet Singh was lying seventh with a score of 290 after qualification stage 1, while the other two shooters Gurpreet Singh and Pemba Tamang finished way behind. As a team also, they could not do much at the Gyeonggido Shooting Range.
