ISSF Junior World C'ships: India win gold in Women's 25m Pistol Team event
The Indian women's 25m pistol team won a historic gold medal in the ISSF World Junior Championships in Lima, Peru. The trio of Manu Bhaker, Rhythm Sangwan and Naamya Kapoor beat USA's Abbie Russell Leverett, Katelyn Morgan Abelin and Ada Claudia Korkhin 16-4 to win the gold.
India is currently at the top of the medal tally in the Championships with 9 gold medals, 7 silver and 3 bronze medals.
Earlier, the 14-year-old Naamya Kapoor had beaten compatriot Manu Bhaker en route her gold in the women's 25m pistol individual event.
The troika of Manu, Rhythm and Naamya, faced little competition throughout as they took a commanding lead of 10-4 before the beginning of the eighth series of rapid-fire shots and then closed out at 16-4.
On Tuesday, they had finished on top of round one qualification with a combined effort of 878, which was six points clear of the second-placed French team.
Later that day, they topped round two as well to ease into the gold medal match with a score of 446.
USA joined them in the final with a score of 437.
In the men’s 25m rapid-fire, India had three finalists out of six with the twins Udhayveer and Vijayveer Sidhu making it through along with Adarsh Singh.
Udhayveer was the best Indian in qualification with a score of 577 and finished fourth, while Adarsh was fifth with 574 and Vijayveer took the sixth and final qualification spot with 572.
Udhayveer and Vijayveer were the first to go out in the final. Udhayveer got nine hits in the first 20-shots to finish sixth. Vijayveer finished fifth, going out in the next series with 13 hits out of 25.
Adarsh, however, started the final on a strong note with a perfect 10 out of 10 in the first two series.
However, USA’s Henry Turner Leverett turned out to be the most accurate in this match and finished with 32 hits out of 40 to win gold, while Adarsh finished with 28 to win silver.
In the 50m rifle prone mixed team event, India finished outside the medal bracket.
The pair of Sift Kaur Samra and Surya Pratap Singh made it to the second qualification round, eventually finishing sixth with a combined score of 409.5.
Ashi Chouksey and Sanskar Havelia finished ninth out 11 pairs in round one of qualification with a combined score of 604.0.
The first eight pairs made it to round two.
Adarsh Singh, meanwhile, won the silver medal in the men's 25m pistol individual event.
Olympian Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar clinched the men's 50m rifle 3 positions gold medal, ensuring a cleans weep for India in the two medal events listed on day six of the competition.
(WIth inputs from PTI)
