Sushil Ghalay is taking back mixed feelings from the 59th National Shooting Championship being held at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range in New Delhi. On one hand he is happy to set the bar higher for the prone shooters as he made a new national record whereas on the other hand he is sad as he could not win an individual medal.
According to the Army shooter, the target on which he was shooting during the finals was faulty which costed him a podium finish.
After the finals, the shooter went along with the range officials to check the target and found that the membrane at his target was not set properly. This could have costed the shooter a fair chance to win an individual medal. He said he was shooting perfect just like he did in the qualification round where he made a new national record of 628.7 but he had no control over his shots in the finals.
“When we went along with Ghalay to check his target, we saw the membrane of the target was not set properly. This was very unfortunate but such things can happen with anyone”, said Manoj Kumar – the range officer.
The shooter blamed the range officials for not properly checking the targets before the start of the finals.
Manoj however denied Ghalay’s charge and said, “We did check all the targets before the start of the finals. We always do it before every final”.
“My sighters were fine but as soon as the record shots started, everything went wrong and my shots were not showing up properly. I shot some perfect shots but the results were not as expected. Since the sighters were fine, I did not protest then and kept shooting. By the time I finally realized the problem it was too late”, said Ghaley.
The ever smiling prone specialist looked dejected and we have learnt that he was even pulled up for expressing himself through a Facebook post which he later deleted.