Munich WC Round Up:Tejaswani finds her rhythm in Munich

By Our Special Correspondent

21 May 2009. At the fag end of the Munich World Cup, third in the four competition series, when all seemed to be over for the Indian contingent, rifle shooter Tejaswani Sawant lifted the sagging morale of the team by winning a bronze in the women's three position event. Sawant’s brilliant performance at least ensured that India will not return empty handed even from this edition of the World Cup.

The Indian squad had bagged two medals each in the previous two edition of the World Cups held at Changwon (Korea) and Beijing (China), and a bronze in Munich will maintain the tempo.

In fact, Sawant got into a perfect rhythm in the event at the right moment for the podium finish. And, all the credit should go to the Hungarian shooting expert Laszlo Szucsak. It is a different altogether that Laszlo is no longer attached with the Indian team, but during his tenure, he was the one to encourage all the shooters in the camp to take up more than one event. His theory was, if you miss a chance in one event, a second discipline might give a chance to grab a medal. “There should be something to fall back, if you miss a chance in one event,” he had always suggested to the shooters.

Sawant, a Maharashtra based shooter, who is better known for her skills in the air rifle event, had in fact trying her hand in the 50m rifle events for the past sometime. And, in Munich it paid rich dividend.

Winning the bronze in a quality field that too in a global competition does speaks volume of the shooter's perseverance who in the past had been close on the heels of state-mate and Olympian Anjali Bhagwat.
The podium finish in Munich, is definitely a big boost to Sawant’s morale, and it will help her face challenge back home when the national squad is selected for the 2010 games.

Good show by Heena and Lajja

It was a good show by 19 year old air pistol shooter Heena Sidhu who also came close to winning another medal for the country, but had to be contented with the fourth spot. Nevertheless her performance of 384 in the preliminary round and 101.9 in the finals, is praise worthy. She had won the silver medal in Beijing to become the first pistol shooter from India to do so.

Rifle shooter Lajja Goswami also had a good day out in Munich. In the women's rifle three position event the 20-year old, had started the final in third place with a qualification score of 587, just three points short of the leader and one short of teammate Tejaswini, but a fatal 7.8 on her eighth final shot, eventually landed her on the sixth place with a total score of 682.4

Big guns fell silent

It was disappointment for most of the shooting fraternity back home when ace rifle shooter Gagan Narang failed to strike a rhythm in his pet event, the 10m air rifle, he registerd a very low score by his own standards, later we learnt that he faced some serious problems with his rifle during the match. Narang although shot good scores in the other two 50m rifle events.

Pistol ace Samresh Jung also couldnot find a rhythm. A couple of days ago, Jung had given a good account of his performance in the international shooting competition in Hannover, Germany, followed by another tournament in Pilzen, Czech Republic. Jung could only manage 555 in the 50m free pistol event to finish 27th in the field.

Silver medallists in the Beijing World Cup, Vijay Kumar too was relegated to mere participation in the 25m rapid fire pistol event, as the scores were too high. He shot a decent score of 576 but had to be contect with the 16th spot.

Shotgun shooters faced stiff competition

Country’s top shotgun shooters shot some good scores but because of a very stiff competition they were no where close of making it to the finals.

In double trap Ronjan Sodhi was far from his best and scored 134 to finish 36th. The eventual winner Joshua Richmond from US, shot 188 (145). The best performance among the Indians was of Vikram Bhatnagar (140), he finished 14th. Vikram Chopra shot one point better than Bhatnagar, but it was in the MQS category.

Even in the men's trap event, world champion--Manavjit Sandhu couldn't make it to the final despite shooting 120/125 in the preliminary round. He finished 27th in a field of 90 shooters.

In the men's skeet event, Sychra Jan (CZE) equalled the world record of 149 (125+24) and there are no points for guessing the results of the Indian skeet team. Everyone has a off day!. indianshooting.com