Shooting World Cup | India asserts prowess with three more golds

Triggering a gold rush: Elavenil Valarivan and Divyansh Singh Panwar set things rolling for India on Monday. (Source: Kamesh Srinivasan)

It was a consistent flow of gold medals, both in Olympic and non-Olympic events, as India continued to assert its shooting prowess in the World Cup at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Monday.

After four days of competition, India has six gold, four silver and four bronze medals. Second-placed USA has three golds, two silvers and a bronze.

The golden flow was triggered by Elavenil Valarivan and Divyansh Singh Panwar, both of whom had finished 2019 as World No. 1 in air rifle before the pandemic.

The duo won the mixed air rifle gold beating Hungary 16-10 in the final, after having topped qualification both in the first and second stages.

“We put up a good show,” said Elavenil, happy to have stepped it up, while Divyansh was happy to “focus on technique”.

It was followed by the mixed team gold in air pistol by Saurabh Chaudhary and Manu Bhaker who were challenged by Iran. In the climax, Saurabh and Manu were in top gear and India won 16-12.

It was no surprise, as Manu and Saurabh had won the mixed gold in all the four World Cups in 2019. Manu had also won the Asian mixed gold, and the World Cup Final gold.

Later, Mairaj Ahmad Khan, Angad Vir Singh Bajwa and Gurjoat Khangura were flawless, as competition hotted up, to beat strong Qatar 6-2. The Indian women’s skeet team of Ganemat Sekhon, Karttiki Singh Shaktawat and Parinaaz Dhaliwal put up a good fare before being beaten by the strong Kazakh team 6-4 in the final.

The results: Mixed air rifle: 1. India (Elavenil Valarivan, Divyansh Singh Panwar) 16 (421.3) 628.0; 2. Hungary (Eszter Denes, Istvan Peni) 10 (419.2) 633.9; 3. USA 17 (418.8) 633.5; 4. Poland 15 (418.9) 627.0.

Mixed air pistol: 1. India (Manu Bhaker, Saurabh Chaudhary) 16 (384) 584; 2. Iran (Golnoush Sebghatollahi, Javad Foroughi) 12 (385) 581; 3. India-2 (Yashaswini Deswal, Abhishek Verma) 17 (382) 577; 4. Turkey 13 (379) 564.

Men’s skeet team: 1. India (Mairaj Ahmad Khan, Gurjoat Khangura, Angad Vir Singh Bajwa) 6 (432); 2. Qatar (Nasser Al-Attiya, Rashid Hamad, Ali Ahmed Al-Ishaq 2 (434); 3. Kazakhstan 429.

Women’s skeet team: 1. Kazakhstan (Rinata Nassyrova, Olga Panarina, Zoya Kravchenko) 6 (327); 2. India (Ganemat Sekhon, Parinaaz Dhaliwal, Karttiki Singh Shaktawat) 4 (341).