India pick up gold and bronze at Shooting Worlds

Baku: Amanpreet Singh won the men’s 25m standard pistol to give India their fifth gold medal in the ongoing ISSF Shooting World Championship here on Wednesday, even as the women’s standard pistol trio picked up a bronze in the team competition.

The country has so far won five gold and four bronze medals, moving back up to second position on the medal tally behind China, who leads with 24 podium finishes, 13 of them being gold.

Amanpreet shot 577 in the men’s standard pistol, a clear three points ahead of silver-winning Korean Lee Gunhyeok, who shot 574. Kevin Chapon of France won bronze with the same score as Lee’s but with lesser inner 10s than the Korean.

The Indian team comprising Harsh Gupta (fourth with 573) and Akshay Jain (545) and Amanpreet, however, narrowly missed a team medal, finishing fourth behind China, Germany and Korea, with a combined total of 1695.

In the women’s 25m standard pistol, while none among Tiyana (11th with 538), Yashita Shokeen (12th with 536) and Kritika Sharma (14th with 527) could win individually, they did bag the team bronze with a combined score of 1601. China won gold and the host nation got silver.

Meanwhile, Rajeshwari Kumari shot the second-best score of 73 on day one of the women’s trap qualifiers and was placed fourth. London Olympic champion Jessica Rossi of Italy was leading the 75-strong field with a perfect score of 75. Rajeshwari and the others come back on Thursday to shoot two more rounds of qualification, before the top six make the finals, which follow on the same day.

Rajeshwari missed just two targets in the Olympic event, with rounds of 24, 25 and 24 respectively. Compatriots Manisha Keer and Preeti Rajak shot scores of 68 and 67 to end the day in 24th and 41st spots respectively. The trio was also in bronze medal contention in the team event with a combined effort of 208 thus far. Italy and Australia were ahead of them in the team competition.

The men’s and women’s individual trap shooting competitions will hand the final eight (four in each event) Paris 2024 Olympic quota places from this tournament.

In the men’s trap, both Prithviraj Tondaiman and Olympian Kynan Chenai shot scores of 72 each. Zoravar Singh Sandhu, the third Indian in the field shot a 68, after shooting a perfect 25 in the opening round.