India won two senior individual medals for the first time in women’s skeet at the International Shooting Sport Federation World Cup Shotgun in Almaty, Kazakhstan on Tuesday. Securing a double podium finish were Ganemat Sekhon who won silver, while Darshna Rathore won bronze.
Local favourite Assem Orynbay of Kazakhstan won gold, through a shoot-off after both Ganemat and herself ended the 60-shot final with 50-hits each. Ganemat missed one out on the first two shoot-off targets after Orynbay had shot both down. It is Ganemat’s second ever individual world cup medal and a first-ever for Darshna who appeared in her first-ever senior final.
Earlier in the day, Darshna qualified for the six-woman final in second place equalling the national record with a score of 120 while Ganemat was in fourth place, shooting 117. Orynbay topped with 121 while among the other qualifiers was Cyprus world number 10 Konstantina Nikolaou.
The Cypriot however was the only shooter to miss three of her first four targets in the final, while the other five missed one each. At the end of the first 10 targets, Orynbay was the most accurate with 8-hits with four others including Darshna and Ganemat following with seven.
Nikolaou was the first to be eliminated after 20 targets as Ganemat and Barbora continued to chase the Kazakh Orynbay, with Darshna trying to catch up.
After 30-hits, the field was down to four with Ganemat leading with 25, followed by Orynbay with 24 and Darshna and Barbora tied at 22.
The two Indians, in particular Ganemat, got stronger as the match progressed. The Czech was next to fall at the 40-target mark with 29 to her name, confirming a double medal finish for the Indians.
Darshna then bowed out with 39 hits and Ganemat and Orynbay had to be eventually separated through a shoot-off.
The third Indian in the field, Maheshwari Chauhan, ended 24th with a score of 108 in qualification.
In the men’s skeet, none of the three Indians qualified for the finals. Mairaj Khan was the best finisher with 119 for 16th place, while Gurjoat Khangura shot the same score to finish 18th. Anantjeet Singh Naruka finished outside the top 20 with a score of 118.
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