BE, New Delhi :: Hosts India continued their dominance of the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun stage at New Delhi’s Dr.Karni Singh Shooting range on Friday, winning two more gold medals on the day, to take their tally to 12 gold, seven silver and six bronze medals for a total of 25 medals won till now.
Seasoned Rifle shooters and Tokyo Olympic quota holders Tejaswini Sawant and Sanjeev Rajput paired up to win the day’s first gold in the 50M Rifle 3 Positions (3P) Mixed Team event. They beat the Ukranian team of SehriyKulish and Anna Ilina 31-29 in a closely contested final. Thereafter, the Men’s 3P team comprising of Chain Singh, Swapnil Kusale and Niraj Kumar bagged the yellow metal beating team USA 47-25 in the final.
India’s bronze medal came via the second entered Mixed 3P team of Sunidhi Chauhan and Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar. They got the better of the American pair comprising of Women’s Air Rifle Olympic Champion Virginia Thrasher and Timothy Sherry, 31-15 in the bronze medal match. In Men’s Trap, Kynan Chenai needed an outright gold to have a chance but finished fourth in a strong field. Former Shotgun World Champion, Daniele Resca of Italy, won the gold in the event while reigning World Champion Alberto Fernandez won silver. Valerio Grazini of Italy was third.
In the Women’s Trap, the gold went to Slovakia’s Rehak Stefecekova, while Poland’s Sandra Bernal won silver and Italy’s Fiammate Rossi won bronze.
India missed out on two outside chances to get two additional quotas above the 15 they have already won for the Tokyo Olympics, on the day. First, in the Men’s Rapid Fire Pistol, Anish Bhanwala by virtue of his world ranking needed to finish among the medals and also hope that Estonian Peeter and Poland’s Oscar Miliwek, finished outside it. An outright gold would have been even easier for him, but even though all three Indians qualified for the final, only Vijayveer medalled while Anish and Gurpreet Singh finished fifth and sixth respectively.
