India claimed a silver and a bronze at the ISSF World Cup in Bhopal, with mixed air pistol team Varun Tomar and Rhythm Sangwan securing second place, while Rudrankksh Patil and R Narmada Nithin secured third place in the event. air rifle on Thursday. .
India has brought her tally of medals in the competition to four, including one gold, one silver and two bronze. China won both gold medals on offer on the second day of competition at the MP Shooting Academy Range.
Varun, following his individual air pistol bronze effort on Wednesday, teamed up with Rhythm to give the Chinese pair of Qian Wei and Liu Jinyao a tough fight before falling 11-17 in the mixed team gold medal. air gun. round.
In the opening stages of the final it looked as if the Chinese would have it easy, but the Indian pair made a great comeback, going from 7-15 to 11-15 before Qian and Liu won the 15th series to seal gold.
Earlier in the qualifying round, Qian and Liu topped the nine-team field with a score of 586, while Varun and Rhythm finished second with 581.
“We all do our best and keep our best foot forward and silver is also a medal. Gold would have been great, but we’re happy we got silver and we’ll try to do better next time,” said Rhythm, one of the shooters. promising pistol players in the country, having won four youth team and individual gold medals at the 2021 World Championships in Lima.
The second Indian team in the event consisting of Divya TS and Sarabjot Singh missed out on bronze by one point, finishing fifth with a score of 574.
Reigning men’s air rifle world champion Rudrankksh Patil and R Narmada Nithin, who combined to win gold at the ISSF World Cup in Cairo last month, finished with a bronze.
The pair had a combined score of 632 in qualifying and placed third, thus qualifying for the bronze medal match against China’s Zhang Qiongyue and Yu Haonan, who finished fourth with the same combined score in the 19-strong field. .
In the bronze medal match, Rudrankksh and Narmada defeated the Chinese pair 16-8 in what was a much closer match than the scoreline would suggest. Both pairs did not fire a single shot below the 10 mark. The highlight came in the sixth series when both Rudrankksh and Narmada fired a perfect 10.9s.
“There was pressure, obviously, but then we had a very good match, the competition was very good and we enjoyed it quite a bit,” Narmada said after the match. “They just asked us to focus on our process and if we had gotten gold we would have been motivated, but bronze motivates us even more to do better next time,” said Rudrankksh.
The second Indian pair in the event, Hriday Hazarika and Tillottoma Sen, shot 628.1 in qualifying to finish ninth.
The Chinese team of Huang Yuting and Sheng Lihao won gold by defeating Hungary’s Istvan Peni and Denes Eszter 16-2.
