Dhanush Srikanth won the men’s 10m Air Rifle on competition day three of the ISSF World Cup Junior in Suhl, Germany on Monday. Dhanush posted 249.4 in the 24-shot final ahead of silver medal-winning Swede Pontus Kallin by 1.3 points. Frenchman Romain Aufrere won bronze.
India also picked up a bronze in the Skeet Mixed Team competition, when Harmehar Lally and Sanjana Sood defeated Swedish opponents David Jonsson and Felicia Ros once again, whom they had to take out in a shoot-off for bronze.
India now lead the medal tally with three gold, one silver and two bronze medals, ahead of the USA who have two golds and one silver thus far.
Late in the day, the women’s 10m Air Rifle final is also scheduled.
Three Indians made the final of the junior men’s 10m Air Rifle. Besides Dhanush, who qualified sixth with a score of 628.4, Pratham Bhadana finished above him in fifth with 628.7. Abhinav Shaw, who won the Air Rifle Mixed Team gold on Sunday, also grabbed the eighth and final spot with a score of 626.7.
From learning the art of sport shooting through drawings from his coach @gaGunNarang, Dhanush Srikanth went on to win gold at the 2022 Deaflympics, and is now a Junior World Cup gold medallist. #Replughttps://t.co/r5jX7k4pOT
— Shahid Judge (@shahidthejudge) June 5, 2023
Telangana lad Dhanush Srikant Wins Gold in the Junior World Cup in Germany and is the only Double deaf Olympic 🥇 🥇 Medallist in the state . He cannot hear and speak ..What an outstanding achievement.@TelanganaCMO @KTRBRS @VSrinivasGoud pic.twitter.com/REat1o7rMl
— Gagan Narang (@gaGunNarang) June 5, 2023
However, Abhinav bowed out in seventh place, while Pratham missed out on a medal with a fourth-place finish. Dhanush was in the lead for most of the final but with one shot to go and the final two spots to be decided, he dropped to No 2 with a high 9. Kallin had the lead with the final shot remaining but the Swede was sub-10 this time while the Indian shot a sensational 10.7 to win the event and broke into a big smile.
There were two Indian teams in the Skeet Mixed Team event. The pair of Ritu Raj Bundela and Raiza Dhillon finished seventh in qualifying with a score of 134. Harmehar and Sanjana, the second pair, made the bronze-medal match cut with a fourth-place finish and a combined effort of 136 out of 150 targets.
There they faced the Swedish pair of Jonsson and Ros who finished third with a score of 137. It was an intense battle for the bronze medal and after 48-targets per team, both were tied at 37 a piece, leading to a shoot-off. While both the men hit their first shoot-off targets, Ros missed one of her doubles and Sanjana took full advantage nailing hers to give India their second bronze at the World Cup Junior.
