Jitu, Nanjappa fail in 50m pistol

RIO DE JANEIRO: Shooter Jitu Rai’s campaign at the Rio Olympics ended on a disappointing note on Wednesday when he finished 12th to miss qualifying for the finals of the 50 metre Pistol Men’s event at the Olympic Shooting centre here.

Another Indian shooter Prakash Nanjappa also finished a lowly 25th to crash out of the quadrennial extravaganza.

Jitu consistently managed to hit the bull’s eye on nine occasions and his cumulative scores after the six series qualification round totalled 554.

But a poor sixth series cost him the berth to the finals while Nanjappa never really looked in the hunt with a score of 547.

Jitu started the first series at the second spot with a perfect 10 and then went on to fire 37 from four rounds to find himself at the 11th spot. The army marksman then picked himself up in the final rounds to get to a cumulative score of 92. Jitu bounced back in the second series with three consecutive 10s to rise to the fifth spot and take his cumulative score to 95.

His third series started with a perfect 10 followed by two 9s. But a six off the fourth shot saw him drop him to 12th only to quickly recover to seventh with two perfect 10s and take his total to 90.

Jitu retained his seventh spot in the fourth series totalling 94 and then kept rising to the fifth spot in the fifth series with a cumulative score of 95.

But a nightmarish start to the sixth series saw him scoring 26 in three shots. He followed up his first three shots with a 10 to climb up to fourth spot only to slip to 7seventh after a paltry 8 from his seventh shot.