Shooting WC: India wins two medals

BHOPAL: India added two more medals to its tally after picking up a silver and bronze in Pistol and Rifle mixed team events respectively while China won both the gold medals on competition Day 2 of the ISSF World Cup at the MP Shooting Academy Range here on Thursday.

In the first medal event of the day, reigning men’s 10m Air Rifle world champion Rudrankksh Patil and R Narmada Nithin won bronze in 10m Air Rifle mixed team. Later, in the day’s second medal competition, the 10m Air Pistol mixed team, Varun Tomar and Rhythm Sangwan clinched silver to bolster India’s medal haul to one gold, one silver and two bronze medals.

China is leading the standings with three gold and two bronze medals, with Azerbaijan, Germany and Hungary winning a silver medal each thus far.

In the 10m Air Pistol mixed team gold medal encounter, Varun and Rhythm went down 11-17 to China’s Qian Wei and Liu Jinyao. Earlier in qualification, Qian and Liu had topped the nine-team field with a score of 586, while Varun and Rhythm came second with 581.

In 10m Air Rifle mixed team, Rudrankksh and Narmada shot a combined 632 in qualification to finish third and thereby advance for the bronze medal match against China’s Zhang Qiongyue and Yu Haonan, who finished fourth in the 19-strong field with the same combined score.

In the bronze-medal match, both Rudrankksh and Narmada were in their element, presenting a solid grouping to beat the Chinese pair 16-8 in what was a much closer match than what the scoreline suggests.

Both the pairs did not shoot a single shot below the 10-mark in what was shooting of the highest order. “There was pressure obviously, but then we had a really good match. The competition was so good and we quite enjoyed it,” said Narmada after the match.