Bologna:
Ace Indian shooter Jitu Rai shrugged off the disappointment of a poor Olympic campaign by clinching a silver medal in the 50m pistol event of the ISSF World Cup Final on Thursday.
Jitu shot a score of 188.8 to finish behind China's Wei Pang (190.6). Italy's Giuseppe Giordano settled for the bronze medal with a score of 170.3 in the final. "After Rio Olympics, I competed for the first time today at Italy.
My performance at Rio was not good. (Rio 2016 Olympics ke baad maine aaj pehla match khela Italy mai. Rio mai acha nahi raha tha mera performance)," Jitu wrote in his twitter handle.
"Today I won the silver medal at World Cup Finals with national record score in 50m. I am very happy with my performance (Aaj Silver medal jeeta World Cup Finals mai with National record score in 50m FP. Bahot khush hu performance se).
"World's top 10 shooters compete at the World Cup Finals. I am thankful to Army, NRAI and OGQ for supporting me. (World cup finals mai duniya ke top 10 shooters ate hai. Army, @OfficialNRAI and @OGQ_India ko dhanyawad mujhe support karne ke liye)," he wrote.
Jitu, who was touted as India's best shooting medal hope in Rio but failed to deliver, had earlier won a silver medal at the ISSF World Cup in Baku, Azerbaijan in the 10m Air Pistol event.
"Congratulations to Jitu Rai. He needs to plan his next four year cycle meticulously," tweeted India's first and only individual Olympic gold-medallist Abhinav Bindra referring to Jitu's Rio Games debacle.
