CWG 2018 | Jitu Rai wins gold, Om Mitharval bronze in 10m Air Pistol

Both Jitu and Mitharval had been dominating the event since the start of the day. They qualified for the finals quite easily with Mitharval equalling the Commonwealth Qualification Record posting a score of 584-26x. However, the journey took a whole new turn for te young Mitharval in the main event.

Though both the shooters started brilliantly in the finals, as both remained in the top three scoring mostly above 10 in the initial stages, it was in the elimination stages that Mitharval saw a slight dip. While Jitu remained at the top throughout the finals after entering into the two-shot elimination stage with a brilliant score of 121.0, Mitharval had to be constantly aware of his elimination that eventually weighed him down.

The first one to get eliminated was Malaysia’s Jonathan Wong, who was followed by Singapore’s Bin Gai, Bangladesh’s Shakil Ahmed and Trinidad & Tobago’s Roger Daniel. The fifth round, however, saw a close fight between Mitharval and local favorite Daniel Repacholi. Mitharval had a lead by 2 and Repacholi’s failure to hit 10 forced him to bow out.

The last two elimination rounds saw a perfect finish for the Indian men to clinch the first two place on the podium, just as Heena Sidhu and Manu Bhaker had done yesterday. While Jitu was safe up top with a score of 197, Mitharval had to keep fighting for survival. And he crumbled under pressure, by scoring below 9 in the two-shot round. An experienced Kerry Bell, however, kept is calm and advanced to the final round.

It needed a terrible mess-up on Jitu’s part to blow the lead, but he kept it consistent by scoring two 9.2 scores as Bell got one his shot less than 9. At the end, Jitu ended with a Commonwealth Games record of 235.1, with Bell finishing with 233.5 and Mitharval 214.3. The win in the competition sees India’s medal tally rise to 15 while India have climbed up the table to the No. 3 spot.