Asiad shooting: India's pistol shooters end campaign with silver

Incheon: India Friday bagged their second silver in the 17th Asian Games as the men's shooting team finished second in the 25 metre center fire pistol at the Ongnyeon International Shooting Range here.

The Indian trio of Pemba Tamang, Gurpreet Singh and London Olympics silver medallist Vijay Kumar scored a combined 1740-68x to finish behind China's team of Yongde Jin, Chuanlin Li and Feng Ding, who fired 1742-56x to take gold.

Tamang shot 288-22x (93, 99, 96 in precision and 99, 97, 97 in rapid) while Gurpreet scored 292-25x (98, 99, 95 in precision and 95, 96, 97 in rapid). Vijay shot 285-21x (95, 94, 96 in precision and 100, 98, 96 in rapid) to help India get their 16th overall medal and eighth from the shooting range.

South Korea, with the team of Youngmin Kim, Daekyu Jang and Jinil Kim, scored 1739-54x to win bronze.

However, none of the Indians managed to finish on the podium in the individual event. Pemba Tamang, Gurpreet and Vijay finished eighth, ninth and 12th, respectively. The individual gold went to Qatar's Oleg Engachev while China's Jin took silver and Singapore's Bin Gai won bronze.

"It was our last match and there was a lot of pressure on us," said Gurpreet.

Vijay, however, was happy that he was not returning home empty handed.

"I had undergone MRI scan and it has been found out that I have cervical spondylitis. I intend to undergo surgery after I go back. I may be out of competition for 20 days. It is the result of overtraining," he said.

Meanwhile, the Indian women's team finished sixth in the rifle 3 positions event while in the individual category, Lajja Goswami came seventh. China, South Korea and Kazakhstan won gold, silver and bronze, respectively in the team event.

The Indian women's team comprising Lajja, Anjali Bhagwat and former World Champion Tejaswini Muley scored 1722-68x. Lajja shot 582-5x (193 in kneeling, 199 in prone and 190 in standing) while veteran Anjali hit 572-23x (193 in kneeling, 193 in prone and 186 in standing). Tejaswini got a score of 568-28x (190 in kneeling, 189 in prone and 189 in standing) but it was not enough to propel India to the podium.

In the individual section, Lajja, who was the only Indian to sneak into the final, shot 401.6 (150.5 in kneeling, 153.7 in prone and 97.4 in standing) to finish seventh.

The gold went to Kazakhstan's Olga Dovgun, who scored 456.4, while South Korea's Mira Jeong took silver. China's Jing Chang was third with a score of 446.2.