Struggles and near-misses continued for India on the concluding day of Olympic airgun events at the 2022 ISSF World Shooting Championships in Cairo (ISSF WCH).
In Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Junior meanwhile India’s Sameer managed to win a silver medal.
10m Air Rifle Mixed Team
Once again a case of so-near-yet-so-far for India. After Mehuli Ghosh’s 10th place in Women’s 10m AR and Naveen’s 9th place in Men’s 10m AP it was the turn of the 10m AR Mixed Team of Mehuli and Arjun Babuta to endure heartbreak.
The Indians shot a good score of 630.0 but finished 7th and out of medal contention. They were just 0.1 points behind the 6th place Chinese team’s 630.1.
The other Indian team of Elavenil Valarivan and Kiran Ankush Jadhav finished 17th with 627.5.
Gold was won by China 1 (Huang Yuting, Yang Haoran) who defeated Korea 1 (Gwon Dayeong, Kim Sangdo) 16-6. The bronze medals were won by China 2 (Zhang Yu, Sheng Lihao) and Korea 2 (Cho Eunyoung, Park Hajun).
10m Air Pistol Mixed Team
More disappointment was in store for India in 10m AP Mixed Team. India 2 (Naveen, Rhythm Sangwan) had an outside chance of qualifying for the bronze medal match and were 7th at one stage but Rhythm’s 3rd series score of 91 pushed the team down to 24th place for a final score of 573-14x.
India 1 (Yuvika Tomar, Shiva Narwal) fared no better and scored 572-14x to finish 25th.
Austria (Sylvia Steiner, Richard Zechmeister) beat Korea (Yoo Hyunyoung, Park Daehun) 16-6 in the gold medal match. Iran (Haniyeh Rostamiyan, Javad Foroughi) and China (Jiang Ranxin, Zhang Bowen) won the two bronze medals on offer.
After Shiva’s poor finals performance, the Indian Men’s AP team’s medal-less finish and the Women’s AP shooters’ low scores the Mixed competition provided yet more evidence of India’s air pistol fortunes going downhill after the heydays of Saurabh Chaudhary, Abhishek Verma and Manu Bhaker.
The NRAI, coaches and shooters will have to sit down do a thorough and dispassionate analysis of what went wrong and the road ahead for Paris 2024.
Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Junior
India’s Sameer won silver in the 25m RFP Junior event. Sameer was in contention for gold after he and eventual champion China’s Wang Shiwen were tied at 22 after the 7th series but a poor final series where he scored just 1 point meant he had to settle for silver with 23 points behind Shiwen’s 25.
Sameer was the only non-Chinese competitor in the medal match. The bronze went to Liu Yangpan.
Sameer had qualified in 4th place with 573, the highest score in qualifications being Shiwen’s 586. Sameer was 2nd in his ranking round and qualified for the finals.
Another Indian Udhayveer Sidhu qualified 7th with 569 but was the first to be eliminated in his ranking round.
Men’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions Team Junior
The Indian team of Surya Pratap Singh, Pankaj Mukheja and Sartaj Singh Tiwana won bronze after beating Austria 16-4. Gold went to USA who defeated Ukraine 16-10.
Women’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions Team Junior
China won gold by defeating Switzerland 17-7. Germany defeated Norway 17-13 to win bronze. The Indian team of Nischal, Nikita Kundu and Nupur Kumrawat had finished 10th in Q1 and were out of contention for Q2.
50m Rifle 3 Positions Mixed Team
China’s Pang Yuqian and Du Linshu defeated Norway’s Martine Sve and Jens Olsrud Oestli 17-11 to win gold. USA’s Katie Zaun and Rylan Kissell beat Hungary 16-10 to win bronze.
The Indian teams of Nischal and Pankaj Mukheja and Surya Pratap Singh and Nupur Kumrawat finished 12th and 19th respectively in Q1 and were out of Q2 contention.
Women’s 50m Rifle Prone
India’s Anjum Moudgil (624.8) finished 5th in the non-Olympic event. Gold went Germany’s Jolyn Beer (627.0), silver to Switzerland’s Sarina Hitz (626.7) and bronze to USA’s Mary Tucker (625.7).
Tejaswini Sawant had famously won a gold in this event back at the 2010 Worlds.
