World at their feet

Putian (China), November 21

India’s young shooters touched another sensational high with Manu Bhaker, Elavenil Valarivan and Divyansh Panwar winning gold medals in their respective events for the country’s best-ever show in the ISSF World Cup Finals. The 17-year-old Manu fired her way to the gold with a junior world record in the women’s 10m Air Pistol event, while the 20-year-old Elavenil claimed the top honours in the women’s 10m Air Rifle competition.

Later, Divyansh, who is also 17, finished on top in the men’s 10m Air Rifle competition with a final score of 250.1. India are currently at the top of the table with three gold medals, followed by China (two gold, one silver, one bronze).

Haryana’s Manu shot 244.7 to notch up the top prize in the prestigious season-ending tournament of International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF). The Jhajjar girl beat a classy field for her maiden WCF gold. Serbia’s Zorana Arunovic won the silver with 241.9, while Quian Wang of China bagged the bronze with a score of 221.8. Yashaswini Singh Deswal finished sixth in the final.

Manu had a difficult qualification round, and lagged in the initial part of the final. She took the lead after the 11th shot in the 24-shot final and never looked back, easily beating former two-time world champion Arunovic.

Gold by 0.1 of a point!

Tamil Nadu’s 20-year-old Elavenil shot a score of 250.8 to edge Taiwan’s Lin Ying-Shin (250.7) in a nerve-wracking final. Romania’s Laura-Georgeta Coman finished third with a score of 229. Elavenil had qualified second for the final with a score of 631.1 behind Ying-Shin (632.3). Mehuli Ghosh also qualified for the final but ended sixth with a score of 163.8.

Elavenil took the lead from the first five-shot series and never surrendered it, though it was close in the end, with Chinese Taipei’s Lin Ying-Shin shooting a 10.8 with her final shot to lose by an agonising 0.1 of a point. Apurvi Chandela and Anjum Moudgil could not qualify for the final

Panwar also won gold by only 0.1 of a point, edging Hungary’s Istvan Peni by 250.1 to 250. The Rajasthan lad had qualified third for the final with a score of 627.1. He was third after the first two five-shot series and took the lead after the 12th shot. After that, he had an intense battle with Peni, with the lead changing hands a couple of times. Going into the 24th and final shot, Panwar led by 0.5. Peni shot a 10.5 but Panwar’s 10.1 was enough to give him gold. 

In the men’s 10m Air Pistol, Abhishek Verma topped in qualification with 588 but ended fifth in the final with a score of 179.4. Saurabh Chaudhary qualified in seventh position before finishing sixth in the final with 159.8. — PTI