Will Jitu Rai’s World Championship title erase his Olympic hurt?

Jitu Rai was the first Indian to qualify for Rio Olympics and finished in podium twice in three world cups before Olympics. He was a sure shot for Medal in Rio but a bad outing ended with one final in 10m pistol and finished 12th in 50m pistol (didn’t qualify for finals). Rio 2016 Olympics was one to forget by Indians and the disappointment started from Jitu Rai’s elimination. Shooting became one of the hopeful events in Olympics for India when Abhinav won gold in 2008 and become first Indian to win an individual gold medal at games.

He was known for his pressure handling mentality and once again he proved with his calm, collective character to go on win a medal and added a third one to his tally of his world cup medals in 2016. The score of 188.8, which turned out to be a current national record and also earned him the silver medal to finish behind China's Wei Pang (190.6). Italy's Giuseppe Giordano settled for the bronze medal with a score of 170.3 in the final. He had one more event in his sight 10m pistol, though he missed the medal in it still he put up a grand show to reach second finals in Italy.

But the success didn’t end there, as he had the opportunity to participate in champion’s trophy (a player with a single medal in any of four world cups allowed to participate) and the competition will take place at the end of the World Cup final. Sunday, October nine became the season closure with the championship event taking place both in rifle and pistol category. The Lucknow-based shooter played for pride, in search of a remedy for his Olympics loss and also for a title of “Champions of champion”. The event took place with an elimination format, where after the first four shots the athlete with the lowest score is first to be eliminated. One athlete is subsequently eliminated after each shot thereafter till the final two athletes remain.

Their scores are then set back to zero and three single shots then determine the winner. With a close score of 29.6 to 28.3, he topped Serbia’s Damir Mikec and became Champions of Champion in the final set. Jitu was also awarded a cash reward of $5,587 (5000 euros) along with the title. Thus, Jitu finishes the year with high note by becoming only Indian to secure a top-10 finish in this calendar year ending rankings by the International Shooting Sports Federation (ISSF). He finished sixth and seventh consecutively in 10m and 50m pistol rankings.