Abhinav Bindra finishes sixth

Indian shooting ace Abhinav Bindra finished sixth in the 10 metre Air Rifile men's event at the Shooting World Cup 2001, in Milan, Italy, on Wednesday.

The 17-year-old who had a superb outing in the preliminaries failed to reproduce the same form in the final round.

Jozef Goenci of Slovakia got the gold while the silver was claimed by Majchacheeap Tevarit of Thailand. Dick Boschman of The Netherlands bagged the bronze.

Bindra scored 102.2 ponits in the final to aggregate a grand total of 696.2, which was enough to place him only sixth. His scores in the final round ran thusly: 10.1, 9.6, 10.4, 10.6, 10.4, 10.1, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, which gave him 102.2 points.

In the women's 10 metre Air Rifle event, Anjali Vedpathak placed 21st with 392 points.

Earlier in the day, Bindra, playing in the second relay, scored 594 points -- with a match average of 9.900 -- out of a possible 600 points to place sixth in the overall standings in the elimination round. His scores in the six series elimination round were 99, 99, 99, 99, 99, 99 out of a maximum 100 for each attempt.

Jozef Goenci of Slovakia topped the elimination round with 598 points, with a match average of 9.966. His scores were 100, 100, 100, 99, 100, 99 in the six-visit elimination round.

Jozef, 26, was World champion in the men's 50 metre rifile three-position event in 1999 and 2000. He was also named shooter of the year in 1998 and 1999.

The other qualifiers are: Tevarit Majchacheeap (Thailand), Dick Boschman (The Netherlands), Sueb Young Lim (Korea), Artur Aivazian (Ukraine), Norbert Ettner (Germany), Valerian Sauveplane (France).

Eight players out of 87 qualified for the finals, which will be played later in the evening.

The other two Indians in the event -- Airira Subbiah, who placed 70th in the elimination round, scoring 578, and Ashok Kumar Shahi, who was 75th, with 572 points, failed to make the grade.