ISSF World Cup: Gold rush continues for India shooters

India’s skeet mixed team of Angad Vir Singh Bajwa (left) and Ganemat Sekhon with their gold medals

The gold rush continued for Indian shooters at the ISSF World Cup on Tuesday as Ganemat Sekhon and Angad Vir Singh Bajwa claimed the skeet mixed team top honours here.

Ganemat, 20, and Angad, 25, who had topped the qualification with a score of 141, produced another good show to beat the Kazakh pair of Olga Panarina and Alexandr Yechshenko 33-29 in the gold medal showdown. It was the only final lined up for the day.

With this, table-topper India's gold haul at the ongoing event went up to seven. The hosts have also won four silvers and as many bronze medals for a total of 15 medals so far in the tournament.

Bronze medal miss

Another Indian pair of Parinaaz Dhaliwal and Mairaj Ahmad Khan, however, missed the bronze medal by a whisker at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range on Tuesday.
Qatar's Reem A Sharshani and Rashid Hamad claimed the bronze medal with a score of 32 against the Indian team's 31. The duo had produced a perfect score in the final four shots even as Dhaliwal, 19, crumbled under pressure and missed a shot to miss out on a third place finish.

In the gold medal match, Angad, World No. 62, looked in fine form as he produced a near-perfect show, missing just one out of his 20 shots even as Ganemat stumbled six times. It was a nail-biting showdown as India and Kazakhstan were level at 16-16 after the first set of 20 targets.

Ganemat got her act together in the second half, producing perfect next four shots and even though Angad missed one, Olga and Alexander both missed two each to give India a 23-20 lead.

In the final four shots, Angad once again produced a confident performance and even though Ganemat missed her last shot, it didn't matter as the Kazakhs were guilty of missing three.

It was the Ganemat's third medal in the ongoing tournament, having claimed a silver along with Parinaaz Dhaliwal and Karttiki Singh Shaktawat in the women's skeet final on Monday.

Ganemat, 20, had won the country's first-ever ISSF World Cup medal in the women's skeet event when she bagged a bronze on the third competition day.

For Angad, it was his second gold after having claimed the yellow metal along with Gurjoat Khangura and Mairaj Ahmad Khan in the men's skeet final on Monday.

Stupendous form

India's youngsters have also been in stupendous form in the tournament and won the mixed team gold medals in both the 10m air pistol and 10m air rifle events on Monday. While Saurabh Chaudhary and Manu Bhaker netted the 10m air pistol mixed team gold, Divyansh Singh Panwar and Elavenil Valarivan claimed the top finish in the 10m mixed air rifle event.

Indian men won the skeet team event, while the women settled for silver.

Ganemat started shooting on the insistence of her father Amrinder Singh Sekhon in 2015 and soon completed a hat-trick of silver medals in the senior National Shooting Championship in 2018 at Jaipur.

In the selection trials held at KSSR in January, Sekhon had topped qualifying with a score of 120, which was a huge six points ahead of the second place. Ganemat also competed in the 2018 Asian Games in Indonesia, where she finished 10th.

In the other events of the day, Sanjeev Rajput qualified for the finals of the men's 50m Rifle 3 Positions event with a score of 1172, to top the charts. In-fact all three Indians made it to the final scheduled for today morning.

Para shooter Narwal wins gold, sets record

Promising Manish Narwal, 19, shattered the world record en route clinching the gold in the P4 mixed 50m pistol SH1 event on the penultimate day of the 2021 Para Shooting World Cup here on Tuesday. This was India's second gold medal in the event after Singhraj claimed the yellow metal in P1 men's 10m air pistol SH1 event. Narwal, the 2019 World Championship bronze medallist, overcame a strong field that had Paralympic and world champions, including Iranian Sareh Javanmardi and Ukraine's Oleksii Denusiuk, to finish with 229.1 points, enough to break the previous world record of Serbia's Rastko Jokic (228.6).

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