Kynan Chenai shot a solid 123 out of 125 and Prithviraj Tondaiman scored 121 but the level of shooting was so high that both Indians could not make the finals of the men’s trap event at the ongoing International Shooting Sport Federation Shotgun World Cup in Acapulco, Mexico.
Chenai was left ruing a last round of 24 in qualification, which put him in a six-way shoot-off for the sixth and final qualification spot. He was the second to bow out in the shoot-off giving him a 10th place finish, while teammate Tondaiman finished 35th despite having three rounds of a perfect 25. Former world champion Manavjit Sandhu finished 66th with a total of 117.
On the first day of qualification on Monday, the two Indians had started strong with Tondaiman scoring a perfect 50 after the first two rounds while Chenai shot 49.
Australian James Willet, who made the transition from double trap to trap just over a year ago after his discipline was removed from the Olympics, claimed the gold medal. In the qualification, he shot a perfect 125 to top the 107-strong qualification field.
He was followed by four shooters with a score of 124 while Briton Nathan Hales, who claimed the final spot winning the shoot-off involving Tondaiman, was the only shooter to qualify with a score of 123.
The two Tokyo 2020 quotas in the event however went to silver medalist Zaher Ahmed of Egypt and China’s Yu Haicheng who won bronze. Willet had 47 hits in the final while Zaher finished with 43 out of 50 hits and Yu’s third place score was 35.
The fourth day on competition on Wednesday will see the mixed trap team finals scheduled where two Indian teams will be in contention — Kynan Chenai and Rajeshwari Kumari, Prithviraj Tondaiman and Shagun Chowdhary.
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