Sports India

Indian shooters had a disappointing day at office as they returned empty handed in the standard pistol event at the 49th World Championships here on Wednesday.

Veteran Jaspal Rana shot a reasonable 572 and Commonwealth champion Samresh Jung scored an average 567 but young Ronak Pandit carded below-par 552 which put paid to the country’s hopes. Indian team returned with a total of 1691 points.

Rana was sixth in his event while Jung and Pandit were a distant 26th and 50th respectively as Indian finished fifth in the non-olympic event.

China won the top honours with a tally of 1715 through Liu Guohui (577), Jin Yongde (570), Liu Yadong (568) followed by Russia 1712 (574+570+568) and Ukrain 1706 (570+568+568).

Democratic People’s Republic was fourth with 1694 (575+565+554) points ahead of India.

“It was not so great a result for India today. Jaspal and Samresh were okay but Ronak shot a far too below his potential which affected the team’s tally,” coach Sunny Thomas said.

Manavjit Singh Sandhu, who has already secured his Olympic quota place for the 2008 Beijing event, however, was leading in men’s trap event after the first round.

Mansher Singh was also among the top scoreres