India’s Manu Bhaker and Om Prakash Mitharval failed to finish on the podium in the final of the 10m air pistol mixed team event after topping the qualification charts in with a world record score of 778 at the ongoing ISSF World Cup in Changwon, Korea on Thursday.
The Indian duo qualified for the final with an emphatic performance that saw 16-year-old Bhaker notching a score of 392 while Mitharval hit 386. But in the final, they managed a total of 378.6 as a string of mediocre scores saw them at the fourth position through the rounds.
They were the second team to be eliminated after Ukraine. The Chinese pair of Xiaojing Ji and Jiayu Wu won Gold in the event with a world record score of 487.7 in the finals. Serbia’s Damir Mikec and Zorana Arunovic won Bronze.
Bhaker and Mithraval had won the gold in the same event at the ISSF World Cup in Mexico earlier this year.
The other Indian pair in the fray, Heena Sidhu and Shahzar Rizvi, finished 19th in the qualification with a combined score of 762.
Earlier, Sanjeev Rajput finished sixth in the final of the men’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions with a score of 395.7. The gold was won by Russia’s Sergey Kamensky with a score of 460.6.
The Commonwealth Games gold-medallist in the event, shot a total of 1178 (391 kneeling, 399 prone, 388 standing) to qualify for the final on the sixth position.
The other two Indians in the fray, Akhil Sheroan and Swapnil Kusale, finished 17th and 24th respectively. Sheroan scored 1172 and Kusale finished with 1171 points.
India are currently ranked tenth in the medal tally with Rizvi’s silver in 10m air pistol the solitary medal. Eight Indians have so far reached seven finals at the Changwon International Shooting centre, including in two team events. There are three more of the 15 finals left in the competition.
This will be the same range where the World Championships, the first Olympic quota competition for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, will be held in four months time.
Note: This story has been updated after the 10m air pistol mixed team final