Saturday, Jul 06, 2002
Saturday, Jul 06, 2002 |
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Shooting
By Kamesh Srinivasan
The team of Anjali, Anuja Tere and Suma Shirur was not exactly expected to set the arena afire, but the below par fare was intriguing, at least for the national coach Prof. Sunny Thomas. Anjali, who holds the National record at 582 scored a 563. She had a poor start in prone with rounds of 97 and 92 and the form kept dipping as she moved into the standing and kneeling positions. The 32-year-old CISF inspector had rounds of 96, 94, 92 and 92 for an overall average shot of 9.383 that put her at joint 21 in her relay. It was Anuja Tere who did the best among the Indians, as she returned a card of 568, though it was 10 points below her recent best. Anuja had rounds of 97, 98, 94, 93, 94 and 92. Suma Shirur who does not focus much on the 3-position event could manage only a 555, following a series of 91, 95, 92, 96, 87 and 94. That 87 may be responsible for her elimination from the individual event. For, it was only the elimination series and what was at stake was the team honours and the qualification for the individual event scheduled for the morrow. Maybe, it would be a blessing in disguise for Suma, as she does have a chance for clinching the Olympic quota in air rifle, and will have that much additional time to focus on the event. Being a diligent student of the sport, Anjali can come up with a better fare on Saturday. For the record, even the defending champion, Sonja Pfeilschifter of Germany could produce only a 579 this day. It was a poignant moment for the Indian team when Rajkumari Dodiya was presented the bronze medal on Thursday evening. It was a pity that the entire Indian contingent could not be present to savour the moment, as the Indian flag went up with the sky scraping ski-jumps as the backdrop, mainly because the shooters were busy with their training schedule. Anjali and Anuja who were on the 50-metre range for training, where the ceremony took place, made it a point to attend it, even as the erstwhile Indian rifle coach Laszlo Szucsak clapped heartily standing nearby, with pride gleaming in his eyes. For, Szucsak was the man who had sparked the march towards excellence in the Indian camp a few years ago. Prof. Thomas and pistol coach Tibor Gonczol along with a couple of other Indian shooters who were entrusted the responsibility of shooting the photo for Rajkumari, were on hand, to applaud the significant achievement.
Rare spectacle
It was equally a rare spectacle as the national flags of Hungary and the United States went up on a single post, as two gold medals were awarded in the 50-metre free rifle prone junior men's event. Even as the leading photographers tried to capture the rare sight, waiting for the wind to flutter the flags nicely, it was an embarrassing moment for the ISSF. For, the situation had come about following protests by France, Germany and Russia, that there was something wrong with the electronic targets and the scoring system. On investigation it was found that targets 33 and 34 at the 50-metre range were giving better scores, because of a "fault.'' Eventually, when the correction was made Zolton Torok of Hungary almost lost his originally won gold, as his point got reduced from 591 to 589. He would have moved the court, but for getting his own share of gold. His series was altered from 100, 99 97, 98, 100 and 97 to a less impressive 97, 97, 98, 98, 99 and 100. Quite interestingly, the altered series matched exactly with that of Joseph Hein of US who had 97, 97, 98, 98, 99 and 100, which meant that the countback system could not break the tie. The American was thrilled with the unexpected bonanza, though the American camp would not have liked the idea of their flag flying second best below that of Hungary! The silver and bronze medals were also awarded to Christian Lejon of Sweden and Dragan Markovic of Yugoslavia, the latter getting upgraded from the fourth position, as per the decision made by the ISSF. The revised results did not alter the status of Abhijeet Konduskar who was tied for the ninth spot with a 584. He had been mystified about two 8s and who knows what had happened behind the scenes in the electronic circuit! The ISSF apologised profusely in a written statement, saying that the error was because of the installation of a wrong electronic card, which resulted in a wrong mathematical calculation of the results of the two targets in discussion. ``The classification and rifle juries immediately corrected this malfunction and additionally conducted a very detailed and severe check-up of all 80 targets used on these two days with test firing on each target by volunteer rifle shooters'', said the ISSF in its statement. The ISSF regretted the "very dramatic failure'' of the equipment that had passed muster for over 10 years in the Olympic Games, World Championships and the Continental Championships. Meanwhile, the two Olympic quota places in the double trap event went to Joonas Olkkonen of Finland and Richard Faulds of Britain who had finished third and fourth here respectively, after they had lost the tie-shoot for the silver to Eller Walton of the US. All three had tied at 187. Both Walton, who won the tie 14-13, and the gold medallist Di Spigno Daniele of Italy, had assured themselves of a quota place for Athens already. Five shooters, Espen Berg-Knutsen of Norway, Marco De Nicolo of Italy, Sergei Martynov of Belarus, Artem Khadjibekov of Russia and Vebjoern of Norway took the quota places in 50-metre rifle prone event, and that should make it that much easier for the likes of Abhinav Bindra when they stake their claim for the six quota places in the air rifle event. As per the new rules a shooter can win only one quota for his country, though he can compete in other events in the Olympic Games.
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