World Championship Rifle/Pistol: Indian juniors win four gold medals in a day

New Delhi: India’s junior shooters won as many as four gold medals in a day, beating China in all those four deciders, at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Championship Rifle/Pistol in Cairo, Egypt, to swell their tally to 20 medals including nine gold, three silver and eight bronze medals.

They are now placed firmly in second place behind China, who have 18 gold for a total of 37 medals.

India’s gold rush on competition day six at the Egypt International Olympic City (EIOC) Shooting Range, began early with the team of Esha Singh, Shikha Narwal and Varsha Singh winning the Air Pistol Team Women Junior event, beating China 16-6 in the gold medal clash. The team made the title round on Monday after coming through two stages of qualification.

It was then the turn of the Junior Rifle girls and the trio of Ramita, Nancy and Tilottama Sen struck gold in the Air Rifle Team Women Junior competition. They too beat a Chinese team 16-2 in a dominating display. They had earlier in the day also topped round one of qualification with 941.5 points and round two as well with a score of 627.6.

India’s third gold of day six came in the Air Rifle Team Men Junior event where Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Sri Karthik Sabari, Raj Ravishankar and Vidit Jain trumped China yet again with a favourable 17-11 scoreline in the gold medal encounter. The junior riflemen emulated their women counterparts in registering a wire-to-wire victory. They had topped round one early in the day with a score of 937.9 after 90 shots and round two with 626.8 after 60 shots.

The 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Mixed Team Junior pairing of Payal Khatri and Adarsh Singh then won the fourth and final gold in the final event of the day, when they beat the pair of Feng Sixuan and Liu Yangpan 17-9 in the gold medal match. They had finished second in round one with 567 and topped round two of qualification with a score of 382.

Sameer picked up his second bronze of the day in the same event, where he partnered with Tejaswini to beat Luo Zizhao and Wang Shiwen of China 16-2, in the bronze medal match. The pair had finished third in qualification round two with a score of 370 and third in round one as well with a score of 560.

His first had come early in the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Team Junior competition where he partnered with Udhayveer Sidhu and Adarsh Singh to trounce Italy 16-2. They had earlier finished third in round two of qualification with a score of 562, to make it to the bronze round.

In late results on Monday, both Indian mixed team pairs in 10m Air Pistol could not make it past the first qualifying round. Rhythm Sangwan and Naveen finished 24th with a score of 573 while compatriots Yuvika Tomar and Shiva Narwal were a spot below with 572.

Day’s other results:

50m Pistol Men

-Arjun Singh Cheema 557 sixth

-Omkar Singh 550 14th

50m Rifle Prone Men

-Swapnil Kusale 32nd with 621.4

-Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar 38th with 619.8

-Niraj Kumar 65th with 614.7

-IANS