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The finals of the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol event took place at the Royal Artillery Barracks and Vijay Kumar was aiming to finish as high as possible. Unlike other events, the finals in this event would not have the scores from the previous round added to calculate the final score. So, irrespective of how the shooters did in the qualification stage, everyone started with a clean sheet and whoever performed well in the round would end up the winners.
In the finals, there would be 8 series of shooting. In each series, the shooter has to shoot 5 shots in 4 seconds. The points would be calculated based on the number of hits that he has. After 4 series of such shots have been fired, the shooter that has the lowest score would be eliminated and the remaining shooters would continue with the 5th round of shooting. This would continue till the 8th series of the shooting, where the top 2 will fight for the gold. If there is a tie, then there would be a shoot off to determine the winner.
The competition, as has been the case in the entire Games, was tough with medal favourites being Alexei Klimov, Feng Ding and Leuris Pupo. But Vijay Kumar was in his elements and did not succumb to the pressure. He started off with a brilliant 5/5 and then continued with a consistent 4/5 for the next 2 rounds. He was always at the joint top with Pupo and Fend Ding. At the end of 4 rounds, Klimov got eliminated after a disappointing day for him. Vijay was never in danger of getting eliminated. He kept consistent scores of 4/5 and outclassed Feng Ding to assure himself of a silver medal. On the other hand, Pupo was relentless and kept hitting the targets with his final score of 34 equalling the world record. Vijay finished with a score of 30, with his last round redundant as he would not have been able to beat Pupo anyway.
This was another fabulous day for India as the unheralded Vijay Kumar made the country proud by winning the silver to add to the bronze already won by Gagan Narang. If shooting were given even more support, maybe India would have even more medals. Nonetheless, this is a time to rejoice and the whole country would be proud of Vijay Kumar’s achievement!
