Ganemat Sekhon reached her first title round of an ISSF World Cup Final, finishing fifth in the women’s skeet event in Doha, Qatar on Thursday.
In the process, she equalled her own national record score of 120 yet again (third time in ISSF competitions this year) when she finished second in qualification behind American Dania Jo Vizzi, going down 5-6 in a shoot-off to determine qualifying positions.
Sekhon, after shooting rounds of 24, 24 and 24 on Wednesday, came back with a 23 and 25 on Thursday to make the top six with ease. Kazakh Assem Orynbay won gold and Italian Chiara Di Marziantonio won silver as Vizzi took home bronze.
At the start of the final, three shooters including Sekhon, Vizzi and skeet legend Kimberly Rhode missed one target each on the first station which had two doubles. The Indian went on to miss the lone double on station two as well. Di Marziantonio and Orynbay were the only two to hit their first six targets and the latter would not miss till the 22nd, before ending with 51 out of 60 targets to Chiara’s 50.
China’s Jiang Yiting was first to bow out in sixth after 20-shots. Vizzi and Sekhon also had 15-hits at that stage but survived on higher bib numbers. The Indian would not overcome the second elimination hurdle though and bowed out with 23-hits to her name.
Prithviraj Tondaiman in the men’s trap shot five identical rounds of 23 each over two days to finish with a score of 115 and 13th position overall.
Anish in the men’s 25m rapid-fire pistol had a fruitful first day of qualifying, lying fourth after the precision round with a score of 292. He will come back on Friday for a shot at the final along with teammates Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar and Sift Kaur Samra, who will be in action in the men’s and women’s 50m rifle 3 positions events respectively.