Gagan Narang put behind the disappointment of being dropped from the Sports Ministry’s Target Olympic Podium (TOPS) scheme by winning the 10-metre Air Rifle gold in the International Shooting Competition of Hannover in Germany on Saturday.
The 2012 London Olympics bronze medallist shot a final score of 249.6 to clinch gold after qualifying for the final in fourth place with a total score of 622.4. Sweden’s Marcus Madsen grabbed silver while George Norton took bronze.
The Indian team comprising of Narang, Mukund Agarwal and Gaurav Singh also bagged the bronze medal with a total score of 1839.7 with United States of America (1859.7) and Kazakhstan (1842.0) taking gold and silver respectively.
Last week, Narang had won the 10m Air Rifle mixed team silver with Pooja Ghatkar at the Grand Prix of Liberation international shooting competition in Pilsen, Czech Republic.
Gagan Narang had also won a silver in the 50m Rifle 3-Position event with a final score of 453.7. Kazakhstan’s Yuriy Yurkov clinched the gold with a score of 459.8 while Madson took the bronze.
A day earlier, India’s Shriyanka Sadangi lost out on the 10m Air Rifle women gold on a shoot-off to settle or a silver medal. Olympian Ayonika Paul took home the bronze with a final score of 228.7 while Lajja Gauswami finished fourth with a total of 206.6.
But it was Sadangi, who has struggled to find form ever since moving to the senior category, showed her fighting spirit as she closed over a one-point game in the last five shots to force a shoot off against Germany’s Charleen Baenisch. However, she came a cropper on the final shot.
Earlier, five Indians qualified for the final with Meghana Sajjanar topping the qualifying start with a total of 631.7 with Sadangi third with a total of 628.4. The team of Sadangi, Gauswami and Vinita Bharadwaj also clinched the team gold with a score of 1879.2.
Gauswami had earlier won the gold medal in the 50m Rifle 3-position event.
Among the other Indians in fray, Amanpreet Singh won the 10m Air Pistol gold with a final score of 238.2 and also won the mixed team bronze with P Shrinivetha.
Bharadwaj and Agarwal had clinched the 10m Air Rifle mixed team gold on Wednesday.
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