In a strong field of world-class shooters, India's Pooja Ghatkar made it to the final rounds of the women's 10m air rifle event, only to narrowly miss out on a medal in the ISSF World Cup for Rifle and Pistol here today.
Pooja finished fourth on the first day of the competition.
Pooja ended her qualifying round of 40 shots each in a creditable third position behind China's Olympic and world champion Yi Siling and Singapore's HO Xiu Yi, shooting a score of 416.7.
Yi finished on top with a score of 420.2, while Ho Xiu Yi logged 418.5.
In the eight-women final, however, Pooja was eliminated in fourth place with a score of 164. Yi won the gold shooting 207.7, while Austria's Olivia Hofmann bagged the silver with a final round score of 184.6. Singaporean shooting star Jasmine piped Pooja to the bronze medal with a final round score of 184.6.
Pooja's team mates Ayonika Paul and Apoorvi Chandela finished 17th and 18th with scores of 413.8 and 413.6 respectively in their qualification rounds.
In the other event of the day, all three Indians in the men's 10m air rifle - Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra, Olympic bronze medallist Gagan Narang and Chain Singh - failed to qualify for the final round.
Chain finished 10th in qualifying with a score of 626.3, while Bindra shot 622.7 to finish in 18th position. Narang shot 617.6 to end in 33rd position.
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Angad thanked Olympic Gold Quest for supporting him.
"OGQ has been a huge support last three years. They have been there for everything -- physios, financial part of it, the ammunition, it wouldn't have been possible without them."
Summing up the outing in the season's first World Cup, he said, "I had a rough second day, I could have made it but I didn't have presence of mind that day. I corrected that today. I have got a personal range set up in Chandigarh, the president has been very kind with this sport."
Asked about the growth of skeet shooting in India in the recent years, the young shooter added, "The belief part has really gone up now, which was not there earlier. When you are shooting with Kimberly you have to believe that you are better than her, if you don't believe you are better than her how can you beat her?
"Technically, (skeet coach) Ennio Falco really helped the team. I also looked after my fitness, my diet, mental side of the game, focused a lot on that," said Angad, who started out as a trap shooter before making the switch to skeet.
"I found trap boring, and skeet more challenging," he said.
