ISSF World Juniors 2021: Indian women’s skeet team wins gold

ISSF World Juniors 2021: Indian women’s skeet team wins gold

The Indian women’s skeet team of Ganemat Sekhon, Areeba Khan and Raiza Dhillon put together a splendid performance to defeat Italy in the women’s skeet team gold medal match at the 2021 ISSF World Junior Championships being held in Lima, Peru.

Ganemat may have won an individual silver yesterday but Raiza and Areeba were the stars of the show for India in the team event. The duo did not miss a single target in the first 2 sets and helped India get a 4-0 lead. The under-pressure Italian team responded with only 5 hits in the third set. Ganemat ensured a 6-0 Indian win by hitting 2 targets in her final round.

Indian women’s shotgun shooting, particularly skeet, has not received much international success historically and this win will give the discipline a fillip.

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In the women’s skeet team bronze match, Germany beat Slovakia 6-4.

Men’s skeet team

The Indian men’s skeet team won bronze. The team of Rajveer Gill, Ayush Rudraraju and Abhay Singh Sekhon defeated Turkey 6-0 in the bronze medal match. Both Rajveer and Abhay missed only two targets each. This was the first medal for India from men’s skeet in the tournament.

Italy defeated USA 6-4 in a closely contested gold medal match.

Rifle and Pistol

India were guaranteed 6 more medals from each of the 6 Mixed and Team rifle and pistol events. In 10m Air Pistol Mixed the Indian pairs of Naveen/Shikha Narwal and Manu Bhaker/Sarabjot Singh will contest for the gold medal. This competition will provide yet another chance for Manu to forget the Tokyo 2020 disappointment. India is slated to win at least 5 more silvers from other events as Indian teams made it to the finals of each of them.

In the Olympic 10m Air Rifle Mixed, the duo of Atmika Gupta and Rajpreet Singh qualified for the finals. In the first qualification stage Paarth Makhija’s stunning score of 315.6, the highest among male competitors, was not enough as he and Zeena Khitta finished 9th.

The USA is still leading the medal standing with 3 golds and 7 medals while India is 2nd with 2 golds and 7 medals.