Rana 11th, Shilpi 10th in Air Pistol

Jaspal Rana made a creditable comeback to international competition with a 11th place finish in the 10-metre Air Pistol for men while Shilpi Singh took the tenth position in the same event for women at the Milan World Cup shooting championships.

Rana, who competed in the Air Pistol event for the first time, aggregated 579 out of 600. The gold medal was won by Vladimir Guchsha of Kazakhstan, with a score of 586.

Rana, who shifted to Air Pistol because his pet Centre Fire Pistol is not an Olympic event, had scores of 96, 96, 98, 97, 98 and 94 in the six rounds last night. The silver in the category was won by Kanstantsin of Belarus with a score of 584 while there was a two-way tie for the third place between Jerzy Pietrzak of Poland and Vigilio Fait of Italy, both of whom tallied 583 points.

Two other Indians in the fray in the event, Ved Prakash Pilaniya and Samresh Jung, finished 42nd and 45th respectively with scores of 568 and 566.

Shilpi had scores of 93, 96, 97 and 94 for an aggregate of 380 from four rounds. Olena Kostevych of Ukraine won the gold with an aggregate of 387 while the silver was won by Brigitte Roy of France with 383 points. Viktoria Chaika of Belarus took the bronze with 382 points.

Shweta Chaudhry tallied 374 points while Sonia Rana scored 371 to take the 29th and 34th place respectively.

Abhinav Bindra, with a score of 594, had placed sixth in the 10m Air Rifle event on the first day of the competition on Wednesday.