Shooting: Back-to-back individual World Cup medals for Anjum

NEW DELHI: Former world championship silver medallist and Olympian Anjum Moudgil won bronze in the women's 50m Rifle 3 Positions (3P) event on competition day eight of the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun stage in Changwon, Korea, making it her second individual ISSF World Cup medal of the year in consecutive world cup stages.

She had won silver in the same event at the Baku World Cup held last month.

The Men's 3P team then won silver, going down 12-16 to the Czech Republic in the gold medal match, to give India a second medal in the day. Sunday's efforts thus saw India hold on to top spot in the medal standings yet again with four gold, five silver and two bronze in their kitty. Korea is next best with three gold and one silver medal.

Anjum had qualified for the ranking round in Women's 3P on Saturday, finishing sixth in the qualifiers. She began the ranking round on Sunday not too impressively and after the first10-shots in the Kneeling position was lying fifth out of eight shooters.

She slipped down further to sixth after the second Prone series but shot solidly in the final Standing position, to steadily climb up the ladder. By the time the fifth and sixth place shooters were eliminated after the 15thStanding position shot, Anjum was 0.2 points ahead of 4th placed Rebecca Koeck of Austria, but a huge 1.5 behind second placed Italian Barbara Gambaro.

This meant that despite gaining a full point on the Italian in the fourth and final five-shot Standing position series, she had to be happy with a bronze. She ended with a score of 402.9, the Italian 403.4. German Anna Janssen won gold with 407.7, way ahead of the field.

The Men's 3P team comprising Sanjeev Rajput, Chain Singh and Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar came through two rounds of qualification, topping the second, to make it to the gold medal match against a strong Czech Republic side.

They did put up a good fight but the Czech trio of Filip Nepejchal, Jiri Privarsky and Petra Nymbursky were too good on the day.

Over at the Shotgun range, India's Mairaj Ahmad Khan was fighting to make it through, shooting 72 on day one of the Men's Skeet qualifiers to lie joint 11th currently. Vijayveer Sidhu and Anish were in 13th and 14thplace in the Men's 25m Rapid Fire Pistol while Sameer was lying 36th in the same event. In Women's Skeet India's Mufaddal Deesawal was lying 23rd with a score of 65 after three rounds.

Monday, day nine of competitions has four finals on the schedule.