India topped the medal tally with four gold, two silver and one bronze, as the year’s first International Shooting Sport Federation World Cup Rifle/Pistol concluded in Cairo, Egypt. On the final day, India’s Rhythm Sangwan and Anish Bhanwala won the last event on schedule, the 25m rapid fire pistol mixed team event, by a margin of 17-7 over Thailand, in the gold medal match.
India also won a silver on the day in the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol team competition, where they went down to Germany 7-17 in the title decider.
The first place in the medal standing was taken by India with 7 medals (4 gold, 2 silver, 1 bronze), the second by Norway with 6 medals (3 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze), the third by France with 3 gold medals.
Sangwan and Bhanwala made it through to the gold medal match after finishing second in round two of qualification with a score of 370 out of 400. The Thai pair represented by Paduka Chawisa and Ram Khamhaeng had topped the stage with 381 to setup the title clash. Esha Singh and Bhavesh Shekhawat, the second Indian pair in the top eight stage, ended in fifth position with 356 points.
Earlier in the 10-team qualification stage one, Sangwan and Bhanwala had topped the field over the Thai team with a score of 566 (out of 600) to 562. Esha Singh and Shekhawat just made it through to the next round with a score of 539 for an eighth-place finish.
In the final, where two points are awarded to the team with the highest cumulative score after each member has shot a 5-shot rapid fire series, the Indian duo needed 12-rounds to cross the coveted 16-point mark required to win.
It was close in the beginning with the scores reading 7-5 in India’s favour after the first six rounds. However, the Indians did not lose any of the subsequent six rounds, splitting points in only two of them, to seal gold.
The men’s rapid fire pistol team competition saw India taking on Germany in the gold medal match. The German team which had Rio Olympic champion Christian Reitz, besides Geis Oliver and Peter Florian, proved superior to the Indian trio of Gurpreet Singh, Bhanwala and Shekhawat. This was India’s second silver of the competition after Esha Singh’s individual silver in the women’s 10m air pistol.
Norway came overall second while France were third. A total of 20 gold medals were on offer. A total of 22 countries won medals in the tournament.
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