Indian shooters claim silver in
men's trap team event

India's shooters scooped up another silver medal to take their tally to two but pistol king Japsal Rana returned with a disappointing performance to further diminish India's medal prospects in the shooting event of the 14th Asian Games in Busan on Thursday.

The trio of Manavjit Singh, Mansher Singh and Anwer Sultan brought some cheer by securing the silver medal in the men's trap team event with a total of 340 points, on a day which saw below par performances by the Indian shooters at the Changwon International shooting range.

Though they failed to upset the applecart of the strong Chinese shooters, the Indian trio displayed superb skill and concentration to make it to the medal podium.

The coveted gold medal was expectedly claimed by the Chinese team, comprising Yongiie Zhang, Hui Li and Lixin Huang, which finished with 353 points. The Philipines team of Jethro Dionisio, Eric Ang and Jaime Recio took the bronze medal with a total of 331 points.

But Jaspal Rana, one of the country's main medal hopes, put up a rather lacklustre display in the men's 10 metres air pistol event finishing much too low on the final position list on day which saw the strong Chinese shooters rule the roost again.

In the team event, the Indian quartet of Rana, Samaresh Jung and Ved Prakash had to be content with the eighth position finishing with a total of 1714 points falling well short of expectations.

Mansher Singh and Manavjit Singh also did reasonably well in the men's trap individual event finishing in the fourth and fifth position respectively. While Mansher managed 137 points his partner Manavjit had one point less than him.

The gold medal in the trap individual event was claimed by China's Hui Li who logged 143 points while compatriot Yongiie Zhang (142) and Jethro Dionisio (139) took the silver and bronze medals respectively.

In the women's 10 m air pistol team event, the Indian trio of Shweta Choudhury, Shilpi Singh and Sheila Kanungo took the sixth position with an aggregate of 1198 and could have done slightly better had Kanungo been a little more consistent.

The Chinese trio of Luna Tao, Jie Ren and Ying Chen secured the gold medal in the women's 10 m air pistol event with a new Asian Games record of 1156 points while the Kazakhstan and South Korean teams took the silver and bronze medals respectively.

On Wednesday, India's medal hunt at the Games gathered momentum with the women's shooting team winning a silver in the 10 metres Air Rifle event.

The Indian team, comprising Suma Shirur, Anjali Bhagwat and Deepali Deshpande, bettered the previous Asian record but still had to be content with a silver in the event, which was won by the Chinese team with a new world record.