Heena fails to make final; Jitu Rai ends eighth

Continuing to heap praises on Jitu Rai, he added that it was a major honour to be in the finals in the Olympics, however, adding that it will be tough from now on.

Earlier, Ayonika and Apurvi failed to qualify for the finals of the women’s 10m air rifle event, while Gurpreet Singh too could not move into the final round.

Rio de Janeiro: Pistol man Jitu Rai flattered to deceive as he finished eighth in the Men’s 10m air pistol event at the Olympics here on Saturday.

But men’s hockey team registered a fighting 3-2 win over Ireland in their opening match, thus breaking 12-year Olympics – their opening group league encounter.

Meanwhile, India’ sole rower, Dattu Bhokanal, gave his country something to cheer about as he finished third and progressed into the quarterfinals of men’s single sculls event.

Jitu raised the hopes of breakthrough as he reached the finals in his event. The second set was closely contested with both teams retaining their serves to stretch it to a tie-breaker.

Wei Pang of China who claimed gold in this event at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, collected bronze and became the fourth multi-medallist in the 10m air pistol men event after compatriot Yifu Wang, Korean Jongoh Jin and Tanyu Kiriakov of Bulgaria. It was a fine beginning for the 25-year-old who took to rowing seriously after the 2012 London Olympics.

The Naib Subedar from the Indian Army slipped to the eighth and last spot right at the start with a total score of 28.9 points after the first three shots. Jitu Rai may be the World No. 3 in air pistol, but his real strength lies in the 50-metre free pistol in which he has won the World Championship silver apart from the Asian Games and Commonwealth Games gold. The Manipuri weightlifter even failed to register a lift in the clean and jerk round after a disappointing snatch (82kg) round in women’s 48kg category.

Everyone enjoyed the brilliant climax when Xuan Vinh Hoang of Vietnam shot a final Olympic record of 202.5 to beat Felipe Almeida Wu of Brazil by 0.4 points, with a 10.7 last shot after the Brazilian had led by 0.2.