ISSF WCH: Shiva Narwal misses out on Oly quota, Esha Singh wins gold in Women’s 25m Pistol Junior
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After the highs of Rudrankksh Patil’s triumph came the relative lows of the pistol squad for the Indian contingent at the ISSF World Shooting Championships at Cairo.
Shiva Narwal, Naveen and Vijayveer Sidhu were seen as among the top candidates for securing an Olympic quota given the highly competitive Men’s 10m Air Pistol contest at the National Games and the foundation set by Saurabh Chaudhary and Abhishek Verma in the past.
But it was not to be at Cairo. In qualifications, 16-year old Shiva fought back brilliantly in his last two series to place 6th with 583. Naveen was extremely unlucky to miss out on qualifying. He placed 9th after scoring 582-19x; just one inner ten lesser than Korean Lee Wonho’s 582-20x. Vijayveer scored a decent 579 but it was never going to be enough at an elite level.
There were 5 different countries in the ranking round and 4 quotas on offer. All Shiva had to do was place 7th, but a nightmarish 3rd series of 9.7, 8.9, 9.9, 10.2 and 9.9 after a 1st series that had scores of 9.2 and 9.4 led to his elimination in 8th place and obliterated any chances of a quota.
In an all Chinese final, Liu Jinyao beat Zhang Yifan 17-15 to win the gold medal. Pavlo Korostylov of Ukraine won bronze. The quotas went to China, Ukraine, Korea and Pakistan.
Jitu Rai at Rio 2016, Abhishek Verma at the 2018 World Championships, Saurabh Chaudhary at Tokyo 2020 and now Shiva Narwal – capitulation by a top Indian shooter in a major Men’s 10m AP final has become a routine event now. The NRAI and the coaches will have to devise a solution soon as this discipline arguably has the best talent pool in the country but without any Olympic or WCH medal to show.
Esha Singh wins 25m Pistol Junior gold
Better news came from the Women’s 25m Pistol Junior competition. Esha Singh led from start to finish in the medal round to win gold in this non-Olympic event.
Esha finished with 29 points, well ahead of China’s Feng Sixuan (25) and Hungary’s Miriam Jako (18). Esha had qualified 4th with a score of 581 (294 in Precision, 287 in Rapid) while Feng had shot the highest score of 590.
Indians Naamya Kappor (568) and Vibhuti Bhatia (566) could not qualify after placing 13th and 19th respectively.
Esha had also won a bronze in the Junior Team event along with Naamya and Vibhuti.
Women’s 10m Air Pistol
The international standards in Women’s 10m AP have greatly risen since the Tokyo Olympics. A qualification score in the high 570s is not good enough anymore. The cut-off at Cairo was 580 while Jiang Ranxin and Zorana Arunovic posted 590+ scores.
No Indian has been able to shoot 580+ consistently even in domestic competitions and consequently there were lesser expectations. Rhythm Sangwan had an outside chance at one stage but due to a middling 5th and 6th series she ended up 17th with 576. Yuvika Tomar was 25th with 574 and Palak was 50th with 568.
The gold went to China’s Lu Kaiman (584) who defeated Greece’s Anna Korakaki (585) 16-10 in the gold medal match. The bronze went to Serbia’s Arunovic.
Men’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions Junior
India’s Sartaj Singh Tiwana had qualified after placing 7th with 580 but was the first to be eliminated in the ranking round. China’s Du Linshu defeated Serbia’s Marko Ivanovic 16-1 in the gold medal match. Griffin Lake of USA won bronze.
Men’s 25m Standard Pistol Junior
India’s Udhayveer Sidhu won gold in this non-Olympic event after scoring 568 in qualifications. China’s Liu Yangpan (567-16x) won silver while another Indian Sameer (567-11x) won bronze. No finals were held.
Women’s 25m Standard Pistol Junior
India’s Tejaswani (557) won bronze. China’s Feng Sixuan (580) and Zhao Nan (566) won gold and silver respectively.
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Niyati
(168 Articles Published)