Indian women’s 25m pistol team to fight for gold in WC

Cairo : The Indian women’s 25m pistol team of Rahi Sarnobat, Esha Singh and Rhythm Sangwan reached the gold medal match in the ISSF World Cup here. The trio topped the second qualification stage with a combined effort of 441 out of a possible 450 late on Saturday night, to set up the summit clash with Singapore, who also shot the same score, but with three lesser inner 10s than India.

Chinese Taipei and Japan will clash for the bronze medal.

India already have two gold and one silver medal from the tournament and are currently placed second on the medals tally.

Saurabh Chaudhary and the women’s 10m air pistol team had struck gold, while Esha Singh had won silver in the individual women’s 10m air pistol.

Medals are also to be decided in the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol where India’s Anish Bhanwala is best placed after the first duelling round of qualification on Saturday. He shot a good 291 to be in ninth position currently in a 37-strong field. Former Olympic champion Christian Reitz of Germany led the field with a sublime 295.

Anish’s compatriots Bhavesh Shekhawat, with 286, and Gurpreet Singh (283) were further down in 20th and 25th spots respectively.

The third medal event on Sunday, the penultimate day of competitions, is the 50m rifle 3 positions mixed team competition, where two Indian pairs namely Shriyanka Sadangi and Akhil Sheoran as well as Sift Kaur Samra and Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, will be in contention.