Vijay Kumar: Silver Medal 25 metre Rapid Fire Pistol

Medal Winner 25-Metre Rapid fire pistol

Silver Medal 25-Metre Rapid fire pistol

Vijay Kumar Army marksman Vijay Kumar gave India the second medal from the Royal Artillery Barracks winning the silver in the men's 25 metre rapid fire pistol event of the 2012 London Olympics in London on Friday. Leuris Pupo kept his cool to win Cuba's first gold of the Olympics. Pupo scored 34 to edge out India's Vijay Kumar, who took silver with 30. China's Ding Feng won bronze after being edged out by Kumar by one point in the final elimination round at the Royal Artillery Barracks. Russia's Alexei Klimov had set a new world record of 592 in qualifying, but struggled in the final after two low-scoring rounds early on, and eventually finished fourth after failing to make it into the final two medal rounds. India's rifle shooter Gagan Narang had won the bronze medal in the men's 10 metre air rifle event in London on Monday. Vijay is also the second Indian after double trap shooter Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore to win an Olympic silver medal. Rathore won the maiden Olympic silver for India in 2004 Athens. En route to his total score of 585, Kumar became the second shooter to break the previous Olympic record of 583 during the second stage of qualification. Placed fourth in the list, Kumar, who had scored 293 in stage 1 of the qualification on Thursday, shot a series of 98 97 97 in the second stage to take his total score to 585. He shot a sequence of 99 96 98 at the Royal Artillery Barracks. The 27-year-old Army shooter won three gold, one silver and two bronze medals in the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games and the Guangzhou Asian Games.

Army sharp shooter Vijay Kumar today fought a nerve-wracking battle with five other top marksmen to clinch the silver medal in the men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol event at the Olympic Games here today. Kumar beat back the challenge of world champion Alexei Klimov of Russia, Chinese duo of Ding Feng and Zhang Jian and German Christian Reitz in the 40-shot final to finish runner-up in a thrilling finale behind Cuba’s Leuris Pupo who shot his way to the gold with a world record equalling score of 34. The 26-year-old army subedar from Himachal Pradesh found the target 30 times out of 40 attempts in the series comprising eight rounds of five shots each. This is India’s second medal in the ongoing quadrennial extravaganza after fellow marksman Gagan Narang’s bronze in the 10m Air Rifle event on July 30. This was also the country’s fourth medal in shooting in Olympic history. The other medal winners are Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (silver in 2004 Athens) , Abhinav Bindra (gold in 2008 Beijing) besides Narang. Kumar started with a bang, hitting the target all five times and kept himself in the hunt for a medal by consistently finding the target. After a perfect five out of five at the start, Kumar, a double gold medallist in the 2010 Commonwealth Games, found the target four times in the second and third series, but missed it twice in the fourth. He came back strongly by finding the target four times in the next three rounds and assured himself of a silver. In the last round after Pupo shot four to clinch the gold, Kumar seemed to relax a bit and missed three targets. The bronze medal was won by Feng with a tally of 27. In the final, Kumar was assured of a medal after the the elimination of the trio of Klimov (23), Jian (17) and Christian (13) leaving himself, Pupo and Feng in the fray. The silver was in his bag when Feng missed twice in the seventh round and Kumar replied with four. Kumar had earlier lifted the Indian shooting team’s spirit after the flop show by Narang, who failed to qualify for the final of the 50m Rifle Prone, by entering the finals of his event through the preliminaries. En route to his total score of 585, Kumar became the second shooter to break the previous Olympic record of 583 to give a hint of his potential during the second stage of qualification. Placed fourth in the list, Kumar, who had scored 293 in stage 1 of the qualification yesterday, shot a series of 98 97 97 in the second stage to take his total score to 585. He shot a sequence of 99 96 98 at the Royal Artillery Barracks. The Army man then successfully competed with five shooters for a medal. Pre-Games medal favourite Ronjan Sodhi had yesterday failed to qualify for the double trap event. Klimov had created a new world record by shooting 592 but he could not replicate that in the final. He scored a total of 592 after Stage 2, breaking the existing world record of 591 and Olympic record of 583, with 294 points in Stage 1 and a staggering 298 out of 300 in Stage 2.