Shooters Ravi, Arjun falter at World Cup
Changwon (South Korea), April 22: India's Ravi Kumar and Arjun Babuta finished fourth and sixth respectively in the men's 10 metre Air Rifle event at the second International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup here on Sunday.
Both Ravi and Arjun had raised hopes of a medal, but missed out in the end. Ravi was competing in his fifth ISSF final in two years and youngster Arjun, playing his first senior World Cup, also gave a good account of himself.
Russia's Alexander Dryagin shot a world record 251.2 in the final to take the gold medal. Fellow Russian and Rio Olympics bronze medallist Vladimir Maslennikov took silver with a score of 250.2 after the 24-shot final.
World No.1 Istvan Peni of Hungary got the bronze with a score of 228.5. Peni had pipped Ravi by 0.2 points at the end of 20 shots. Ravi bowed out in fourth place after leading the finals initially with a score of 208.4.
Arjun, also leading the final at one stage, finished sixth eventually with a score of 165.2.
Earlier, in the 92-strong qualification round, Ravi shot a 629.2 after 60 shots to qualify second while Arjun shot 627.0 to capture the eighth and final qualifying spot.
Deepak Kumar, the third Indian in the fray, missed out, placing 15th after shooting a score of 625.9.
In the women's 10m Air Rifle, Apurvi Chandela shot 627 to finish 10th, the best among the three Indians in the fray.
She missed out on a final berth by a point. Mehuli Ghosh shot 626.0 to end in 17th place while Anjum Moudgil shot 625.5 to finish in 20th spot.
China's World Cup debutant Zhao Ruozhou won gold in the event with a world record score of 252.4. Chinese Taipei's Ying-Shin Lin took silver and Norway's Jenny Stene got the bronze.
Both Rahi Sarnobat and Heena Sidhu shot 291 out of 300 to finish the first qualification stage of the women's 25m Pistol in the 10th and 13th positions respectively in a 61-shooter strong field. Annu Raj Singh was lying 20th with a score of 288.
In the women's Trap, after the first day of qualification, Shreyasi Singh with 64 hits out of 75 was the best placed Indian at the 30th position.
Shagun Chowdhary had 63 to lie 36th while Seema Tomar shot 60 to be in 47th place. The top six qualify for the finals in both the events.
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Maharashtra Congress chief Patole meets Kharge, dismisses resignation talk as 'rumours'
New Delhi, Nov 25: Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole on Monday dismissed as "rumours" talk of his resignation following the assembly polls debacle and stressed on "collective accountability" for the defeat.
Patole made the remarks after meeting Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge during which he conveyed that the result had not reflected the sentiments of the people of Maharashtra.
"Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi and other national and state leaders were leading Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) from the forefront during the assembly polls. So, we were sure that the trends were in favour of Maha Vikas Aghadi, even the citizens believed that," the Maharashtra Congress chief said.
"If I talk about Nanded, the Lok Sabha bypolls and assembly elections were held on the same day. In Lok Sabha bypolls, our candidate was winning in six assembly seats, whereas, in the assembly elections, we are not winning even a single seat," he said, adding that there cannot be such a "huge difference".
This is the sentiment among the people also and they have stated that this government in Maharashtra was not being formed on their votes, he claimed.
"So, I spoke to Mallikarjun Kharge on this," he added.
Asked whether he had offered to resign or the party had asked for his resignation after the Maharashtra assembly polls defeat, Patole said, "These are all rumours and there is no truth in them. There is collective accountability."
Patole also said he will meet Rahul Gandhi in a day or two and discuss all issues.
"Democracy is being finished. We have discussed that... there was no talk of resignation," he said.
The MVA alliance, comprising the Congress, NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) and Shiv Sena (UBT), was restrained to 46 seats by the Mahayuti that reaped a rich harvest of 230 seats in the 288-member House.
