Sarabjot Singh and Varun Tomar started India’s home World Cup on a high, with a double podium finish at the first International Shooting Sport Federation World Cup event in Bhopal.
Sarabjot beat Azerbaijan’s Ruslan Lunev 16-0 in the men’s 10m air pistol gold medal match to give India its first gold medal, while Tomar won bronze.
It was an end-to-end victory for Sarabjot, who first topped the 60-stroke qualifying round with a score of 585. In the top-eight 25-shot qualifying round, he led again with a score of 253.2 before to blank out his opponent in the gold medal match. The icing on the cake was a perfect 10.9 on his final shot to win his first World Cup medal in any style. Tomar, on the other hand, had a mixed campaign. At one point, it looked like it could be an all-India gold medal match, but he finished with 250.3 to finish third. Sumit Raman, the third Indian in the field, shot 577 to finish 10th in the standings. In the women’s 10m air pistol, China’a Li Xue won gold, while Qian Wei won bronze, ensuring that both China and hosts India finished the first day of the competition with identical medal counts.
Among the Indians, Rhythm Sangwan and Manu Bhaker posted qualifying scores of 572 and 568 to finish 10th and 12th among the medal contenders, respectively.
The second day of competition will see the air pistol shooters return for their mixed team event on Thursday.
