India’s young Rifle shooting talent, Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar made his second final of the ongoing International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun stage at the Pampas Shooting range in Osijek, Croatia, finishing sixth in the Men’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions event on Sunday.
He had earlier in the tournament also made the Men’s 10m Air Rifle final to finish seventh.
India did not add to their haul of one silver and two bronze medals, but Indian shooters are in more finals contention with Rahi Sarnobat and Manu Bhaker shooting impressive precision round scores in the Women’s 25M Pistol. Rahi shot 296 out of 300 to be in the third position in the 49-strong field, while Manu shot 292 to place ninth with the Rapid Fire round coming up on Monday, followed by the final.
Aishwary was impressive throughout the day, making it to the eight-man final in a top-class field. His own senior teammate Sanjeev Rajput, who will be competing in his third Olympics next month in Tokyo, fell short shooting 1173 in qualification as the youngster grabbed the eighth spot with a 1176 after 40 shots in the Kneeling, Prone and Standing positions each.
Among other renowned names who fell by the wayside were world number one Istvan Peni of Hungary and Croatian great Petar Gorsa.
In the finals, Aishwary was in contention till the completion of the 15 Kneeling position shots, when he was placed fourth behind Czech Republic’s Petr Nymbursky.
Rio Olympics silver medallist Serhiy Kulish of Ukraine led the field at that point with another Rio silver medallist Russian Sergey Kamenskiy in second, and that order remained till the end of the final. Slovakia’s Patrik Jany won bronze.
The Indian then went down to fifth after a moderate 15-shot Prone position round and bowed out in sixth place after the 11thshot of the Standing position with a score of 416.4.
On Monday, besides the Women’s 25M Pistol final, Anjum Moudgil and Tejaswini Sawant will also be carrying Indian hopes in the Women’s 50M Rifle 3 Positions event, whose final is also scheduled on the day.
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