Kazakh shooter records 600/600

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October 27, 2003 19:47 IST

World champion Olga Dovogun of Kazakhstan recorded the magical score of 600/600 to win the women's 50m sport rifle prone gold while Manavjit Singh Sandhu lost in the tie-shoot to settle for the silver in the men's trap in the shooting competition at the Afro-Asian Games in Hyderabad on Monday.

India failed to win their second gold medal after Gagan Narang's effort in men's 10m air rifle yesterday.

The hosts' other two medal winners on the second day of competition were Deepali Deshpande (silver, women's 50m rifle prone) and Anwar Sultan (bronze, men's trap).

But the closest of all contests was the nerve-wracking men's trap final, where Sandhu settled for the silver medal, losing to China's Asian Games champion Li Hui 6-7 in the tie-shoot.

All the six finalists went into the final recording identical scores of 117 and at the end of the final round of 25 shots three shooters - Hui, Sandhu and Anwar Sultan -- were tied on 141 points, each scoring 24 in the final.

In the tie-shoot that followed Sultan went out early but Hui and Sandhu went level till 6-6. Hui missed the next try but the Indian also failed to hold his nerve, missing his next shot.

Lui then went ahead 7-6 but Sandhu once again missed his bird, thus gifting the gold to the Chinese.

Chinese domination continued in skeet shooting as Asian champion Jin Di won the gold with a tally of 148/150. He was followed by Qatar's Masoud Hamad (142) and Alexei Ponokarev of Kazakhstan (139), who won the silver and bronze medals respectively.

Jaspal Rana disappointed in the men's 25m center fire pistol event, finishing a poor sixth after scoring 575 points. The Indian said he could not concentrate because of "reflection" on his side mirror.

The gold went to Vietnam's Tuong Nguyen Manh, who tallied 584/600. Korea's Taek Park Byung (583) and Hak Lee Sang (580) took to silver and bronze medals respectively.

Dovogun stole the limelight in women's 50m rifle prone with an amazing performance that saw her recording perfect scores of 100 in each of the six rounds to tally 600/600.

However, the Kazakh's feat will remain an unofficial world best as the Afro Asian Games is not recognised by the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) for official records.

The rare feat by Dovogun will though be written in letters of gold in the Afro-Asian Games annals. The 32-year-old had equalled the world record mark of 587 twice last year.

Deepali Desphande took the silver, tallying 588 points. Korea's Ah Hyun Kong (587) won the bronze medal.

In the men's 50m free rifle prone, South Africa's Jaco Henn managed to claim the gold by a margin of 0.2 points. Henn tallied 694.3 against 694.1 by China's Weiyi Wang. Fred Senore, also of South Africa, settled for bronze with a total of 693.4 points.

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