Asiad: Vijay Kumar wins bronze in 25m centre fire

Guangzhou : India’s Vijay Kumar won the bronze in men’s 25m Center Fire pistol, while top rifle shooter Gagan Narang missed the bronze by a whisker in the 50m rifle 3 positions event in the Asian Games here on Thursday.

Vijay shot a total 583 (290+293) to finish third. The gold went to South Korea’s Park Byung Taek who scored 586 (290+296), while China’s Liu Yadong settled for the bronze with 585 (290+295). The medal was Vijay’s second in shooting, having won a bronze in 10m air pistol individual event.

Other two Indians in the fray, Omkar Singh and Harpreet Singh finished eighth and 32nd with scores of 580 and 563 and failed to qualify for the final round.

In the team event, India finished fourth with the trio of Vijay, Omkar and Harpreet shooting a total of 1726. China won the gold, South Korea silver and North Korea bronze.

Narang, who won four gold medals in the Commonwealth Games, was unlucky as he missed the bronze in men’s 50m rifle 3 positions event by 0.5 points to Qinan Zhu of China.

The Indian had a total of 1261.8 points, 0.5 points behind bronze medal winner Qinan, who also defeated Narang to win the 10m air rifle individual gold earlier in the Games.

Narang was the only Indian to have qualified for the finals in the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions after finishing fourth with a score of 1162 (393 prone+382 standing+387 kneeling).

Other Indians in fray, Imran Khan and Sanjeev Rajput finished 13th and 15th with scores of 1150 (377+384+395) and 1146 (394+379+373).

India also missed out on a bronze in team event as they finished fourth behind China (3471). South Korea won the gold with 3489 points while the silver went to Kazakhstan (3478 points).