The junior Indian shooting squad won five gold medals on the fourth day of the ISSF Junior World Championship in Lima, Peru, to extend the country’s tally to 14 medals.
India has so far won 10 gold, one silver and three bronze medals.
Divanshi clinched gold in the individual junior women’s 25m pistol event, shooting a score of 35 to pip Italian Cristina Magnani by two points in the final. France’s Heloise Fourre was third.
It was a double-gold for Divanshi on the day as she combined with Tejaswini and Vibhuti Bhatia, to win the junior women’s 25m pistol team gold ahead of Czechia and Germany. Their combined tally being 1711.
Divanshi had a tough road to gold after missing seven of her first 15 targets in the individual final, putting her in sixth position initially. However, she recovered brilliantly, hitting 16 of her next 20 to move up to second with three more series of five shots remaining in the 10-series final.
Magnani who had led from the beginning, found herself tied with Divanshi on 31-hits after the ninth series as the Indian nailed a four when it mattered most, while Cristina missed three. France’s Fourre, who had piped Divanshi to second after the eighth series, had to settle for bronze after missing three shots in the ninth series.
In the 10th and final series, Divanshi repeated her four-hits score from the ninth series to seal the deal, as the Italian went down missing three targets yet again.
Divyanshi had, earlier in the day, reached the final by finishing fifth in qualification with a score of 577 over the precision and rapid-fire rounds of 30-shots each. Tejaswini (569) was 13th and Vibhuti (565) was 22nd. Naamya Kapoor was 40th with 552.
Mukesh Nelavalli wins third gold
Mukesh Nelavalli was the other hero of the day for India, winning a double gold which gave him a total of three for the championship so far.
He picked up the junior men’s 25m Pistol gold with a score of 585, putting him two ahead of compatriot Suraj Sharma, who won India’s first silver of the competition. The duo added Pradhyumn Singh (561) to the mix to also snatch the team gold in the event from Poland whose tally of 1726 fell three short of India’s 1729.
Nelavalli had also won a team gold in the men’s 10m air pistol event on the opening day of the competition.
India’s fifth gold on Tuesday came in the junior men’s 50m rifle 3 positions team competition, when Shourya Saini, Vedant Nitin Waghmare and Parikshit Singh Brar tallied 1753 to equal the junior world record in the elimination round to win gold. Norway was five points behind in second while Sweden were a further two behind in third.
Saini then made the final, finishing seventh in the qualification round, with a score of 583 over the three positions. He finished seventh eventually. Waghmare missed out on a finals spot on lesser shots in the inner 10-ring, finishing in ninth position on the same qualifying score of 583, while Brar was further behind in 14th with 582.
Buy an annual Scroll Membership to support independent journalism and get special benefits.
Our journalism is for everyone. But you can get special privileges by buying an annual Scroll Membership. Sign up today!