Rana wins gold again, misses own world mark

October 23: It is extremely hard to keep Jaspal Rana out of headlines. Vivek Singh did his best last night, but Rana was back to his spotli...

October 23: It is extremely hard to keep Jaspal Rana out of headlines. Vivek Singh did his best last night, but Rana was back to his spotlight-hogging ways today at the Alpic Masters shooting championships at the Municipal Shooting Range, Worli.

Late Wednesday night, Vivek did the unthinkable. He kept his nerves to win a tight final shootout to take gold ahead of Rana in the men’s 10m air pistol event.

But today, Rana was on familiar grounds. The 25m centre fire pistol is his pet event. It’s like Billy the Kid’s own territory. A score of 588 brought him the gold with a margin of 30 points over Ved Prakash of Army (568) and fell just two points short of his own world record of 590 at the Bangalore National Games and a windfall of Rs 1,00,000.

Story continues below this ad

Rana followed the Bangalore pattern today too. In the precision round (the target remains stationary), he shot 293 as in Bangalore. There, he had promised his father Narayan Singh that he would break the Asian record. A stupendous performance of 297 in the most gruelling duelling round (the target turns in this case) saw him beat the record by one point and equal the world record in the process.

Thus, the anticipation was high today. Rana scored a perfect hundred in the first card but a 97 in the second botched his plans. A 98 in the third was good enough for the gold, cash prize of Rs 5,000 and the Herbertson Trophy.

Wednesday night, however, belonged to Vivek Singh. The 22-year-old, who is sponsored by Indian Airlines, had a super qualifying round in which he scored 580, just two short of Rana’s national record of 582. Rana scored 576 and was placed second going into the shootout.

Rana shot brilliantly and by the end of the ninth shot out of ten, he not only bridged the gap, but was leading by 0.1 point. It all boiled down to the final shot and knowing the mental toughness Rana possesses, Vivek’s looked like a lost cause. As the shooters steadied themselves for the final shot, a silent prayer must have passed their lips. At the signal from the referee, they pressed triggers amid hushed silence. Vivek hit the bull’s eye and got 10.1 points for the shot. Rana, despite his well documented acquaintance with the black spot, missed it by millimetres and was given 8.9 points.

Story continues below this ad

It was all over. Rana, ever the sportsman, was the first person to congratulate his city-mate. In the event, Navy’s Satendra Singh was a forgotten bronze medallist in the duel, with an aggregate of 671.6 points.

Results

Men’s 25m centre fire pistol: Individual: 1 Jaspal Rana (Del) 588, 2 Ved Prakash (Army) 568 (147 in tie-breaker), 3 Ashok J Pandit (Mah) 568, 4 GD Sharma (Army) 564, 5 Manju Nath Patgar (BSF) 563; Team: 1 Army A 1693 (Ved Prakash 568, GD Sharma 564, Dhyan Singh 561), 2 Delhi 1675 (Jaspal Rana 588, Rajiv Sharma 550, Vivek Singh 537), 3 Maharashtra A 1663 (Ashok Pandit 568, Shyam Bali 550, Raj Khalid 545)Men’s 10m air pistol: Individual: 1 Vivek Singh (DEL) 676.3; 2 Jaspal Singh (DEL) 675.2; 3 Satendra Kumar (Navy) 671.6; 4 Ved Prakash (Army) 671.4; 5 Naresh Kumar (BSF) 667.7; 6 Samaresh Jung (DEL) 663.9; Team: 1 Delhi 1722 (Vivek Singh 580, Jaspal Rana 576, Samaresh Jung 566); 2 Navy 1694 (Satendra Kumar 572, Binod Kumar Singh 563, TK Sikdar 559); 3 Army A 1678 (Ved Prakash 572, Dhyan Singh 558, Yogesh Meena 548)Juniors: 1 Subhash Rana (DEL) 558; 2 Vijay Kumar (Army) 549; 3 Rajesh Kumar (Army) 548Free rifle 3 position: Juniors: Praveen Rawat (Del) 1078, 2 Surjit Singh (Army) 1057Sports pistol: Juniors: 1 Vijay Kumar (Army) 558, 2 Subhash Rana (Del) 551, 3 Amol Chauhan (Mah) 549