Day Three: Gold medal is yet to come

DATELINE DOHA
India has achieved the set target of five medals in the shooting arena in the first two days itself, but its shooting coach Sunny Thomas is not overjoyed yet with the team’s performance here at the Lusail shooting complex.
The Indian shooting contingent has won three silver medals and two bronze, but the Gold rush is yet to come. Shooters won bronze in the Men’s and Women’s 10m Air Rifle team event on the first day, while yesterday they won three silver medals.
“Gold has to come. I am satisfied to some extent but not overjoyed with the performance,” said the chief coach.
Talking about the country’s hunt for the precious metal, Thomas said, “It can happen anytime. All the shooters are capable of winning gold.” Talking about Melbourne Commonwealth Games’ best athlete award winner Samaresh Jung, Thomas said, “It was not his day. It happens but he has still three events left. Let’s see what he does.”
The Indian coach also spoke about how Air Rifle shooter Abhinav Bindra’s absence in the team has affected the medal prospects. “Yesterday the Men’s 10m Air Rifle team lost the silver by just one point. Had he (Abhinav Bindra) been there, we would have won the silver too. Similarly, the women’s team too lost the silver by couple of points.”
Bindra had pulled out of Asian Games due to back injury.
India missed out on another bronze medal yesterday when shooter Harven Srao shot a total of 484.5 missing out on a bronze by just 0.1 point to Korea’s Byung Hee Kim. “Harven shot 101.5 in the final, which is a very good score. It’s sad she missed out on a bronze,” said the Indian coach.
However, Joseph kept mum on chances of India’s Athens Olympic silver medalist Lt Col Rajavardhan Singh Rathore in the men’s double trap event. In the absence of UAE’s Ahmed Al Maktoum, Rathore has a strong chance of winning the gold. “We are good in double trap. Let’s see we hope to pick up more medals,” he added.
India has already lost out on a gold yesterday, when reigning world champion Manavjit Singh Sandhu lost to Kuwait’s Naser Meqlad.
However, shooting at Lusail was a kind of different experience for shooters. “Normally, shooting ranges in Japan have kind of wall in front of you, it cab be forest or wall but, her in Lusail Shooting Complex, the desert stretched as far as the eye could see. And then you only see the horizon and sky. We are not used to this kind of range,” said Japan’s lone male trap shooter, Hiroshi Susuki.
Sandhu too complained about the strong windy conditions due to which his vision was hampered by a contact lens problem in his left eye. He only scored 22 and 21 out of possible 25 in the last two qualification rounds.
Rising Kuwaiti 24-year-old shooting star Naser Meqlad’s gold is the third gold medal that Kuwait has won in shooting at the Asian Games. Kuwait now dominate the men’s trap shooting event in the Asian Games, having won gold in three of the last four Asian Games. Only China’s win at Busan 2002 has interrupted the sequence. Kuwait finished fourth in Busan. Meanwhile, India has now a distinction of finishing as runner-ups in this event for the maximum number of four times.