Astana, Aug 12:
Sheeraz Sheikh narrowly missed out on an individual medal even as the men’s skeet team bagged a bronze on the sixth day of competition at the 7th Asian Shotgun Championship here.
The mixed team comprising Sheeraz, Mairaj Ahmad Khan and Angad Vir Singh Bajwa finished on the podium behind hosts Kazakhstan (350) after aggregating 347 out of 375.
India has so far won seven medals in the competition.
Team Kuwait won the gold, finishing with an identical score of 350, but edged out the hosts on better finishing round scores.
At the end of the first day of qualification in the men’s skeet yesterday, Mairaj and Sheeraz were placed ninth and 10th respectively on identical scores of 69 out of 75 targets.
Angad Bajwa was in 23rd place with 64.
Today, with two more rounds of qualification left, all three shot one perfect round of 25 each. Sheeraz and Mairaj also had an additional round of 24 to finish on 118.
Three other shooters finished on the same score to go into a shoot-off to determine the four finalists. Saif Bin Futtais of the UAE and Mansour Al Rashedi of Kuwait ended on 119 to secure the first two spots out of six.
Mairaj lost out in a tight shoot-off, missing his 8th shot, while four others including Sheeraz, Ali Doosti of Iran, Makoto Yokouchi of Japan and Alexandr Yechshenko of Kazakhstan were on target in the first eight.
Meanwhile, Bajwa’s score of 25 and 22 on the day saw him improve his position and end in 18th spot.
In the final that followed, Sheeraz survived the first phase where Mansour of Kuwait was eliminated in sixth place. In the second phase, Ali Doosti was eliminated in 5th place on a score of 24. Sheeraz went on to score 33, but bowed out in fourth place.
Futtais eventually won the gold with a score of 53 in the final. Yechshenko won silver, shooting 49, while Yokouchi bagged the bronze with 41. PTI
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