India picked up three more gold medals to go with two more bronze, including a double gold by Udhayveer Sidhu, to consolidate second spot on the medals tally at the end of competition day three of the on-going International Shooting Sport Federation World Championship Rifle/Pistol campaign in Cairo, Egypt.
Udhayveer won both the Junior Men’s 25m and Standard Pistol titles while Esha Singh clinched the Junior Women’s 25m Pistol crown as India ended the day with four gold and three bronze medals to lie behind China who have eight gold and a total of 16 medals.
Earlier this year, Esha Singh, competing in her first ever senior-level World Cup, won three medals at the event in Cairo. On Saturday, at the same venue, the 17-year-old became the junior World Champion in the women’s 25m pistol event.
The Hyderabad shooter scored a solid 29 shots in the medal match, against Chinese shooter Feng Sixuan’s 25, to claim gold in her event at the ongoing ISSF World Championships.
Shooting: 17-year-old Esha Singh’s rise from the shadows to World Cup glory
This comes just a few days after she had teamed up with Vibhuti Bhatia and Naamya Kapoor to win India’s first medal at the elite competition - a bronze in the junior women’s 25m pistol team event.
Esha finished the initial qualification round in fourth position with a score of 581 (294 in precision and 287 in rapid). She then finished second in her ranking match, behind only China’s Shen Yiyao with 11 hits. But it was enough to take her through to the four-way medal match.
She had a solid start, hitting four shots out of five - better than each of her three opponents. She was tied on eight with Hungarian shooter Miriam Jako after the second series, but then took the lead after the third series - it was a lead she would comfortably maintain till the gold medal was secured.
Udhayveer shot a combined 580 after the Precision and Rapid-Fire rounds in the Junior Men’s Sports Pistol, to emerge on top of the 23-strong field. Italian Matteo Mastrovalerio was a point behind in second while China’s Liu Yangpan won bronze with 577. In the Standard Pistol, he shot 568 across three stages to leave behind Yangpan, who this time settled for silver with 567. India’s Sameer also shot 567 but won bronze on countback.
After finishing her qualification round in fourth place with a score of 581, Esha came second in her ranking match to make it to the final medal round. In the eight series of five rapid fire shots each final, Esha shot a five and then four rounds of four hits each, to emerge the most consistent and seal the gold medal. She eventually got 29 hits in the medal match to ease over China’s Feng Sixuan who finished with 25. Miriam Jako of Hungary won bronze. After two silvers at the Lima Junior World Championships last year, this was her first Junior Worlds crown.
India’s second bronze of the day came from Tejaswini in Junior Women’s 25m Standard Pistol after she shot 557 to finish behind Chinese athletes. Manvi Jain was fifth with 556 and Payal Khatri was eighth with 547.
No Olympic quotas on the day
In the two Paris quota events of the day, India’s Shiva Narwal finished eighth in the Men’s 10m Air Pistol. He shot 583 to qualify in sixth place for the ranking match, but could not make much headway thereafter, being among the first to be eliminated on a score of 147.6. Naveen was unfortunate to miss out on a top eight spot after finishing in ninth place with 582. Two other shooters qualified on the same score but Naveen lost out on lesser inner 10s. Vijayveer Sidhu shot 579 to finish 19th overall.
India also missed out in the Women’s 10m Air Pistol when Rhythm Sangwan finished 17th in qualification with a score of 576. The final qualifying spot went at 580. Yuvika Tomar shot 574 to finish 25th while Palak was further back with 568 and in 50th position.
In other results India’s Sartaj Tiwana finished eighth in the Junior Men’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions (3P) event with a score of 297.7 in the ranking match. He had qualified seventh on Friday with a score of 580. In the Junior Women’s 3P, none of India’s three competitors made it beyond the qualification stage with Nishchal finishing best in 29th spot and Nikita Kundu a step lower at 30th. Both shot scores of 576. Nupur Kumrawat was 51st with 566.
Shooting World C’ship: Rudrankksh Patil wins gold medal in 10m air rifle, earns Paris Olympics quota
On Friday, Rudrankksh Patil won gold in the men’s 10m air rifle event - also claiming a quota for the Paris 2024 Olympics.
(With NRAI inputs)
Corrections and clarifications: The original report has been updated to reflect Udhayveer’s medals as well.
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