ISSF shooting championships: Indian men win 5th gold
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New Delhi: Indian Men's 10m Air Rifle team Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil, Kiran Ankush Jadhav and Arjun Babuta won India's fifth gold medal at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Championship Rifle/Pistol campaign in Cairo, Egypt. India defeated tough China 16-10 in the gold medal match, IANS reported.
Rudrankksh, who became the world champion in the individual event recently, won his second senior world championship gold.
On Sunday, India also bagged a silver and two bronze medals and raised their medal tally to five gold, one silver and five bronze, maintaining the second position below China. Further, the Women's 10m Air Pistol team are also in the final, which means the medal tally will increase for certain.
On competition day 4, the Indian men battled against the Chinese team, which had Yang Haoran (double Olympic gold medallist and two-time world champion), Lihao Sheng (Tokyo Olympics silver medallist) and Song Buhan (world championship silver medallist). India had a 14-2 lead at the start itself. But the strong Chinese reduced the lead to 14-10. However, the Indian men kept their grip to seal the gold medal match.
Indian Air Rifle Women couldn't shine in the individual event but won a bronze in the team event, Meghana Sajjanar, Elavenil Valarivan and Mehuli Ghosh, against Germany, exhibited good performance.
Manvi Jain and Sameer won India's first silver of the championships going down to China's Feng Sixuan and Liu Yangpan 17-03 in the gold medal match of the 25m Standard Pistol Mixed Team Junior competition. They had come second in stage one of qualification with a score of 564 and then topped stage two with a combined effort of 378 to make it to the title decider.
Payal Khatri and Sahil Dudhane won India's fourth bronze of the championships in the same event, defeating Ane Torgersen and Hans Noestvold of Norway 16-14 in a close encounter. The pair had finished third in stage one with 563 and then third again in stage two with 368, to qualify for the bronze match.
In the Men's 10m Air Pistol Team competition, the Indian team comprising Shiva Narwal, Naveen and Vijayveer Sidhu shot 580 in qualification stage two to finish fifth eventually. Also, in the Women's 50m Rifle 3 Positions Team Junior event, India's Nishchal, Nikita Kundu and Nupur Kumrawat ended 10th in qualification with a score of 1278.
