Apurvi Chandela finished fourth at the ISSF World Cup in Munich on Thursday after one poor shot saw her drop from gold-medal position. Chandela had performed at a consistently high level throughout the qualifying round and the first few stages of the 10m air rifle final.
The 25-year-old continued from she left off in the qualifying rounds in the final, shooting 10.4-plus with every one of her first 10 shots in the final. Despite a couple of high-nines in the subsequent elimination rounds, Chandela was leading the pack till the medal rounds.
With four shooters left in the fray, it seemed a medal was in the bag. All that was left to determine was what colour, despite the Chinese Taipei and Chinese shooters reducing the lead on her ever so slightly.
However, Chandela shot a 5.9 high in the target board that stunned the commentators and crowd in Munich alike. The audience let out a collective gasp, followed a little shake of the head by Chandela herself. She recovered to shoot a 10.5 with the next shot, indicating that there was no rifle malfunction, but the damage had been done with that 5.9 and she was eliminated.
China’s Lin Ying-Shin, the world No 3, won the gold medal.
Earlier in a high-scoring qualification round, Chandela shot a total of 630.9 to reach the final in fourth spot. Anjum Moudgil finished 25th with a total of 626.4, while Mehuli Ghosh could only manage 620.3 and finished a disappointing 86th.
This how the final unfolded:
In another event on the day, Heena Sidhu of India shot 290 in the precision round of the women’s 25m Pistol to lie in 10th position overall. The rapid fire round on Friday will determine the top eight who make it through to the finals. Annu Raj Singh shot 287 to be in 24th place, while Rahi Sarnobat was in 64th place with a score of 282.
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