Heena Sidhu, Annu Raj bow out of Olympics

LONDON: Indian shooters continued to misfire at the Olympic Games as Heena Sidhu and Annu Raj Singh bowed out of the women's 10m air pistol event after failing to qualify for the finals on Sunday.
Heena came close after finishing 12th with a score of 382 while Annu Raj ended 23rd at the Royal Artillery Barracks.
While Heena had a sequence of 93 97 97 95, Annu Raj shot a series of 94 96 97 91, efforts not good enough to see them into the top-8.
China's Wenjun Guo won the gold medal, the silver went to France's Celine Goberville while the bronze medal was won by Olena Kostevych of Ukraine.
Vijay Kumar could not qualify for the final of the men's 10m air rifle event yesterday.
It was the second day in a row that the Indians have failed to qualify and it will put enormous pressure on the other shooters who are expected to do the bulk of the medal shopping.
Tomorrow could turn out to be a big day for India as Abhinav Bindra and Gagan Narang will be representing the country in their pet event, 10-metre Air Rifle. Two days later, Ronjan Sodhi will look to hit the bull's eye in the double trap event.
First-timer Olympian Sodhi, who had trained in Italy along with compatriots Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Shagun Choudhary, arrived here with two world titles under his belt.
Then there are also Sanjeev Rajput, Joydeep Karmakar and Rahi Sarnobat -- all capable of producing scores good enough to get medals.