In the men's event, Jaspal Rana, double gold medallist in Centre-fire Pistol four years ago, was not too happy with his performance in the Air Pistol event. He shot 575 as against his best 582. Xu Dan of China upstaged his compatriots Tan Zongliang and Wang Yifu to take the gold with 685.0 (582 in preliminary and 103.0 in final), while Zongliang was second with 683.6 (comprising 582 and 101.6) and Vladimir Gichsha of Kazhakstan, the winner of the Free Pistol gold, was third with 682.6 (comprising 583 and 99.6). WangYifu, the defending champion and Asian record holder was fourth with 678.9 (578 and 100.9). The Indians finished sixth in the team event.

Just as the Indian camp had feared the use of trolleys during the event played havoc with their shooting and scores. Even a normally fast shooter like Roopa Unnikrishnan barely finished her match of 60 shots having had to hurry herself in the closing stages. She ended with a score of 582, which was eight points less than what she had logged at the Commonwealth Games where she won the gold. The winner here was Wang Xian with 589, while Japan's Yoko Menamoto shot 586 and her teammate Noriko Ojima was third with 585. Japan took the team gold and India with 1,1684 were 13 th. Individually India's other shooters, Kuheli Gangulee shot 574 for the 27 th place and Anuja Tere logged 528 for the 42nd position.

On Monday the Indian shooters had their first and only training session at the Hua Mark range with the trolleys, which take about 22 seconds to go back and forth after eachshot for the target to change. In India most of the shooters are used to manual change of targets, which is much faster because there is no trolley. According to the Indian shooter, internationally, the targets are changed by an electronic machine, which is how it was at the Commonwealth Games. Roopa Unnikrishnan, one of India's medal hopes from the discipline, had expressed a lot of apprehension the other day when she saw the trolleys. "I am a fast shooter and the time taken in between will slow things and slow my rhythm," she had said. That precisely is what seems to have happened.

The men's Air Pistol is a basic event in pistols and one which Jaspal is preparing for in the long run since his favourite centre-fire is not an Olmypic event. "It was an event where there were world class shooters, including an Olympic champion," said Jaspal. "But I am not happy with my score. It should have been at least five points more at 580."

Vivek Singh (568) and Satendra Kumar (566) were the other Indians in the 23rdand 27th spots. India's score of 1,709 was 12 points short of the bronze medal score of 1,721 by South Korea. "With a little luck we could have at least got a medal in team," said Jaspal. But then the way things are going the Indian contingent could do with a lot of luck.