Don't be fooled by Chain Singh's final position. At one stage, qualification to the 50m rifle 3 final was within touching distance. Singh was sixth after the prone stage, but a poor showing in the standing category saw him finish 23rd with a total of 1,169 points. India's other shooter in the event, Gagan Narang, had an outing to forget and was never in contention for a place in the top eight from the start. The 33-year-old finished at a lowly 33rd with 1,162 points.
Singh got off to a rollicking start, leaping to the 24th spot in the third stage of kneeling, notching up scores of 98, 95 and 99, which took him to a total of 391. However, it was the prone stage in which he truly came into his own. Three consecutive 100s in the three series catapulted him to the eighth position; he had scored 34 consecutive 10s in the prone stage alone. Narang was left behind with a score of 395/400 at the end of the prone stage. At the same stage, Singh had amassed a score of 398/400.
Only one point separated sixth-placed Ole Kristian Bryhn of Norway and Singh after the prone round. Even in the standing position, Singh started off brightly but he needed 10s to keep pace with his competitors, who were breathing down his neck. With scores of 95 and 94 from the first two series, the Kashmiri shooter slowly lost his grip on the contest, and slipped out of the top 10. Yet again, the distance between qualifying for the final and finishing outside the qualifying spot proved to be a step too far.