Rio de Janeiro: India's latest Olympic quota holder, Sanjeev Rajput on Friday said he was under pressure and disturbed after one of his shots was recorded as zero due to a scoring equipment malfunction in the ISSF World Cup here.
Staging a remarkable recovery, Rajput secured India's eighth Olympic quota in shooting with a silver medal in the men's 50m rifle 3 positions event of the World Cup on Thursday.
The 38-year-old shot 462 in the final to finish second on the podium behind Petar Gorsa of Croatia (462.2). "I was a little disturbed throughout the qualification as one of my shots was recorded as a zero," the two-time Olympian said.
"We then protested and fired an extra shot, which was a 10 and I qualified comfortably. "In fact we are still in protest and my score should be 1181 and not 1180."
Rajput could have won the gold but for an 8.8 in the last shot, which saw him miss his second World Cup yellow metal, after the one he had won in 2011, by a slender 0.2 point margin to Gorsa, who had won the Olympic quota in air rifle.
"It was a delay shot. You have a timing in your mind, like a whole shot process should conclude in say 30-40 seconds," he said."When that sequence gets disturbed, the release gets delayed by a fraction - these things can happen in shooting. It is a matter of the tiniest fractions."
The former Indian Navy marksman rallied after a poor start in the final, where he hit the 9s in his first three shots. "There was pressure as I was playing in a final after a long time," Rajput said.
He said a change in approach to shooting in standing position has helped him in the final.