Arjun Babuta wins 10m Air Rifle gold at Changwon World Cup

Arjun Babuta wins 10m Air Rifle gold at Changwon World Cup

Arjun Babuta (Via Open Source/X)

India’s campaign at the ISSF World Cup in Changwon, Korea got off to a perfect start as 23-year old Chandigarh-native Arjun Babuta won the first gold medal of the tournament.

Arjun beat USA’s Lucas Kozeniesky 17-9 in the Men’s 10m Air Rifle gold medal match. Kozeniesky had notably won the 10m AR Mixed silver medal at last year’s Tokyo Olympics and had also been a finalist in the individual event.

Another Indian Paarth Makhija (258.1) finished fourth in the ranking round finishing behind bronze medalist Sergey Richter (259.9) of Israel. Arjun finished first in the ranking round with a score of 261.1 ahead of Kozeniesky’s 260.4.

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Richter had topped the qualifications yesterday with a stunning 631.6. Arjun was not far behind with 630.5. Paarth had scored 628.4 to finish fifth while the cut-off was 627.9. India’s Shahu Tushar Mane finished 30th with 624.4.

This was Arjun’s first senior ISSF World Cup medal. His previous best was a fifth place finish at the 2021 Delhi World Cup.

Women’s 10m Air Rifle

India’s Mehuli Ghosh had the narrowest of misses in qualifications. Her score of 628.7 was just 0.1 points behind the cut-off of 628.8. Ramita finished 17th with 627.4 while Olympian Elavenil Valarivan was 24th with 626.3.

Hungarian Gitta Bajos topped the competitive qualifications with 630.6 while Korean Cho Eunyoung was the overall topper with 632.1.

The gold was won by Czech Lucie Brazdova who beat Romanian Roxana Sidi 16-8 in the gold medal match. Tokyo Olympic finalist Eszter Meszaros of Hungary won the bronze.

10m Air Pistol: Naveen, Shiva, Sagar, Yuvika qualify

Women’s 10m Air Pistol

ISSF World Cup debutante Yuvika Tomar qualified for the ranking round of the Women’s 10m Air Pistol competition with a score of 576 for a seventh-place finish.

She was the only Indian to qualify as Palak and Rhythm Sangwan (both 573) finished 10th and 11th respectively. Korean Kim Boni topped qualifications with 588; the same was scored by Olympic medalist Anna Korakaki. Others in the field include Olympic finalist Zorana Arunovic and Women’s 25m Pistol silver medalist Kim Minjung. The cut-off was 574.

Both Manu Bhaker (573) and Esha Singh (570) posted disappointing scores though they participated for ranking points only (RPO) and were not eligible for the finals.

Men’s 10m Air Pistol

India’s Naveen topped competitive qualifications with an excellent 587. Only Korea’s Park Daehun (who participated for RPO) was ahead of Naveen with 589.

Among the other two Indians, debutante Sagar Dangi qualified fourth with 582 while Shiva Narwal qualified sixth with 580. The cut-off was 579.

The field includes Serbian Tokyo 2020 silver medalist Damir Mikec and Italy’s London 2012 silver medalist Luca Tesconi.

Trap Day 1

In Men’s Trap, India’s Prithviraj Tondaiman (74) and Vivaan Kapoor (73) are in with a chance of qualifying for the finals tomorrow while Bhowneesh Mendiratta (69) faces an uphill task.

In Women’s Trap, Neeru (65) and Preeti Rajak (63) have a lot of catching up to do to qualify on Day 2.