ISSF WCH: Anjum Moudgil finishes 6th in 50m Rifle 3P; Juniors win 4 more medals

India’s Anjum Moudgil finished 6th and narrowly missed out on an Olympic quota at the ISSF World Shooting Championships in Cairo.

In Junior events, Sagar Dangi and Varun Tomar won silver and bronze respectively in Men’s 10m Air Pistol Junior; Nancy and Sri Karthik Sabari Raj Ravishankar won bronze in 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team Junior and the Indian Men’s 10m AP Junior Team of Sagar, Varun and Samrat Rana won gold.

Women’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions: Anjum Moudgil misses out on quota

A poor kneeling round in the Women’s 50m Rifle 3P ranking match ended Anjum Moudgil’s Paris 2024 quota chances for the time being. There were 8 competitors from 7 different countries and had Anjum finished 5th or higher she could have won the quota at Cairo.

Two 9s each at the beginning and end of the kneeling round saw Anjum drop down to last place. A good prone series helped her climb to 7th; she eventually managed to finish 6th despite an 8.8 in her standing round.

Since the two Norwegians Jenny Stene and Jeanette Hegg Duestad finished 1st and 3rd respectively the final quota went to 5th-placed Eunseo Lee of Korea. Miao Wanru of China and Sagen Maddalena of USA were the other two quota winners.

Stene had a tremendous comeback after being 6th at the end of the kneeling round; she hit a number of 10.5+ shots and only one 9 in the prone and standing rounds to end up finishing 1st.

Stene however lost 13-17 in the gold medal duel to Miao Wanru.

Anjum (587-31x) had narrowly qualified in 7th place based on inner 10s after the 7th to 10th place shooters all ended up at 587. Wanru (592-32x) was also 1st in qualifications.

The other Indians Ashi Chouksey (582) and Sift Kaur Samra (577) finished 33rd and 53rd respectively.

Men’s 10m Air Pistol Junior

India’s Sagar Dangi and Varun Tomar won silver and bronze respectively in the Men’s 10m AP Junior competition.

Sagar lost 12-16 to China’s Gao Jinkang in the gold medal match.

Sagar (253.8) was 1st in the ranking round. Varun, despite a bright start in his first 10 shots where he was in the lead with a rifle-like score of 104.5, dropped down to 4th after a 7.2 and numerous 9s in the 3rd and 4th series.

He however had a solid comeback in the 5th and final series though he was also aided by then 3rd-placed Italian Matteo Mastrovalerio’s scores of 8.1 and 7.6.

In qualifications Sagar (588) and Varun (583) were the only shooters who scored above the Senior cut-off off 582.

Another Indian Samrat Rana (576-18x) was 9th and missed out on qualifying based on inner 10s.

10m Air Rifle Mixed Team Junior

India’s Nancy and Sri Karthik Sabari Raj Ravishankar won bronze after defeating Sweden’s Amanda Josefine Karlsson and Victor Lindgren by a score of 16-8.

Gold was won by China’s Shen Ying and Du Linshu who beat Serbia’s Alexsandra Havran and Marko Ivanovic by a score of 17-7.

The other bronze medal was won by China’s Liu Yafei and Zhu Mingshuai who blanked USA 16-0.

The Indians were in the top for much of the qualification round but a slightly weaker final series ended their run at 629.1 and allowed Du Linshu-led China to just get ahead with 629.2. Serbia were 1st with 629.8.

The other Indian team comprising of Olympian Divyansh Singh Panwar and new junior Women’s Air Rifle champion Ramita scored 622.6 and finished 13th and out of the medal race.

Men’s 10m Air Pistol Team Junior

The Indian team of Sagar, Varun and Samrat beat the Uzbekistan team of Mukhammad Kamalov, Ilkhombek Obidjonov and Veniamin Nikitin by a score of 16-8 to win gold in this non-Olympic event.

Bronze went to China who beat Korea 16-6.

India (867-33x, 577-25x) were the top nation in both qualification rounds.

India had earlier won golds in the other 3 airgun Team Junior events.