Manu Bhaker is Junior World Champion, India win 5 medals
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Manu Bhaker
After being subjected to much criticism following the dismal show at Tokyo 2020, Manu Bhaker began her redemption run by winning the Women’s 10m Air Pistol gold at the 2021 ISSF Junior World Championships.
16-year old Esha Singh helped India complete the 1-2 in this event while more medals came from other events.
Manu, the 2018 Youth Olympic Champion, put her international experience into good use amidst a depleted field. Four consecutive 10+ shots got her into the lead midway into the match and she was in full control thereafter.
Manu’s final score of 241.3 was well ahead of Esha’s 240. Rhythm Sangwan could nearly have made it a podium sweep for the Indians but was eliminated in 4th after being just 0.2 points behind bronze medalist Yasemin Beyza Yilmaz of Turkey.
The performances of Esha and Rhythm will serve to strengthen India’s depth in this event as well as in 10m AP Mixed.
Skeet Junior Women
The other talking point of the day from an Indian perspective came via Women’s Skeet. Ganemat Sekhon came agonizingly close to winning a historic women’s shotgun gold for India but lost to USA’s Alishia Layne in a tie-break shoot-off.
Ganemat was in the top 3 throughout the match. She and Layne were the only gold contenders once Italy’s eventual bronze medalist Sara Bongini lost momentum and was out of the race. Thereafter it was neck-and-neck till the shootoff which Ganemat lost 0-2.
Ganemat has previously won Junior World Cup bronzes but this is arguably her best performance on the international stage.
Another Indian finalist Raiza Dhillon was eliminated 6th.
Layne had earlier topped qualifications with a score of 115. Ganemat was 4th with 110 while Raiza was 6th with 109+4. Areeba Khan the third Indian in the fray finished 8th with 107 and did not qualify.
10m Air Rifle Men Junior
Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil gave a good account of himself against Olympic champion and favourite Will Shaner of the USA before ceding points to the latter and having to settle for silver.
Rudrankksh, who was in the lead for much of the match, was outclassed by 4 consecutive 10.7+ shots by Shaner near the end. He finished with a score of 250, 0.7 behind Shaner’s 250.7
Five Indians had qualified for the finals yesterday but ISSF rules permit only 3 finalists from a nation. Eventual bronze medalist Rylan Kissel of USA was one of the beneficiaries of the rule at the expense of India’s Rajpreet Singh and Yash Vardhan.
Paarth Makhija and Dhanush Srikanth were eliminated from the finals at the 7th and 8th place.
10m Air Rifle Women Junior
Olympic finalists Oceanne Muller of France and Mary Tucker of USA were always going to be favourites in Women’s 10m AR and they duly lived up to the tag by bagging gold and silver respectively following a shoot-off. Both were tied at 250.6.
India’s Ramita did well to win bronze against a field that also included Hungarian World Cup medalists Eszter Meszaros and Eszter Denes. Ramita showed great composure in scoring important high 10s despite facing the pressure of Meszaros and the other two medalists.
Mehuli Ghosh, the bigger name from India, finished 5th while Nisha Kanwar was the first to be eliminated at 8th place.
10m Air Pistol Men Junior
None of the Indians could convert their 580+ qualification scores into a medal in Men’s 10m AP. India’s Naveen was in the lead for much of the match till a disastrous 7.6 at the worst possible moment caused his elimination in 4th place.
The gold was won by Belarusian Abdul-Aziz Kurdzi with a score of 236.8. Silver went to Martin Torneiro of Spain. German Eduard Baumeister, who qualified ahead of India’s Shiva Narwal due to ISSF rules, won bronze.
The other Indians Sarabjot Singh and Vijayveer Sidhu had a disappointing outing and finished 6th and 8th respectively.
Skeet Men Junior
No Indian qualified for the Men’s Skeet finals. Rajveer Gill (112) at 10th was the highest-placing Indian. Elijah Ellis and Jordan Sapp got a 1-2 for Team USA in the finals while Italian Cristian Ghilli finished 3rd.
USA leads the medal standings so far with 3 golds and 6 total medals. India is 2nd with 1 gold and 5 medals.
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Niyati
(168 Articles Published)