Sift Kaur Samra won the women’s 50M Rifle 3 Positions (3P) gold late on Sunday evening, to make it 10 gold medals for India at the International Shooting Sport Federation Junior World Cup in Suhl, Germany.
Indian shooters continued to pick up more medals on Monday as the Men’s 3P team won silver and Anish and Vijayveer Sidhu won silver and bronze respectively in the Men’s 25M Rapid Fire Pistol, with the Women’s 3P team also set to fight for bronze later in the evening.
India made it 12 silver and three bronze medals in addition to the 10 gold for a total of 25 medals from the world’s premiere Junior Shooting Championship and sat at the top of the table with the second placed Italians way behind with four gold and three bronze medals.
Sift Kaur Samra on Sunday beat Norway’s Julie Johannessen 17-9 in the gold medal encounter to take India’s gold tally to double digits. Ashi Chouksey of India also won bronze in the event.
On Monday, it was the Men’s 3P team who first got India on board, going down 12-16 to Italy. Shivam Dabas, who also won an individual silver in the event, Pankaj Mukheja and Avianash Yadav first topped qualification with a combined effort of 1315 and then were second in the elimination round to the Italians itself, to set up the gold medal clash.
Then in the Men’s Rapid Fire Pistol, Anish and Vijayveer made the four-man medal round, but it was France’s Yan Chesnel who picked up gold with 32 hits in the final. Anish, despite finishing well, shot 28 to settle for silver. Vijayveer finished with 18, ahead of Germany’s Markus Lehner who was fourth with 10.
Earlier on Sunday, India’s Pistol girls affected a clean sweep of the Women’s 25M Pistol competition on the penultimate day of the Junior World Cup.
Rhythm Sangwan won gold, Manu Bhaker silver and Naamaa Kapoor bronze, as India completely dominated the Olympic event. The Indian trio were head and shoulders above the field from the qualification round itself.
Rhythm topped the round with a 588 score while Manu was second with 584 and Naamya third with 583. Then in the eliminators, Naamya topped hers with 12 hits while Rhythm followed her to the medal round in second with 11 hits. Manu topped the second eliminator comfortably with 17 hits as German Michaela Boesl won a shoot-off to become the fourth finalist with nine hits to her name.
Then Naamya ensured an Indian sweep of the medals, taking out the German in a tense three-shot shoot-off, after both had tied on 10-hits after four 5-shot series rounds. Meanwhile there was a battle at the top, as Manu initially led from Rhythm, but the latter caught up by the fifth series and then surged ahead after the seventh as Manu registered a blank.
Eventual scores read 31 hits for Rhythm, 26 for Manu, while Naamya finished with 16 hits to her name.
Shivam Dabas also won India a silver in the Men’s 50M Rifle 3 Positions Junior competition, going down 15-17 to Italian Danilo Sollazzo where the Italian also had to survive a shoot-off against the Indian to win in what was a very close final.
