Om Prakash Mitharval was crowned the men’s 50m pistol world champion after he clinched the gold medal at the ISSF Shooting World Championship in Changwon on Tuesday.
The 23-year-old scored a total of 564 points out of possible 600 to take the gold ahead of Serbia’s Damir Mikec (562) and Korea’s Daemyung Lee (560). The 50m pistol is no longer part of the Tokyo Olympics programme and hence does not have a final.
Mitharval’s triumph means India have won the gold in both the senior and junior category of the 50m pistol event after Arjun Singh Cheema triumphed on the opening day.
The Indian team comprising Mitharval, Jitu Rai and Manjit, however, failed to finish on the podium as they finished fifth with a total score of 1,648. Rai shot a total of 552 while Manjit only managed a score of 532. Korea took the gold with an aggregate of 1,670, with Serbia (1,667) and China (1,661) taking the silver and bronze respectively.
Women disappoint
The Indian women pistol shooters also had a disappointing outing in the 10m Air Pistol event as none of the three managed to reach the final on Tuesday.
After Anjum Moudgil and Apurvi Chandela bagged two Tokyo Olympic quota places for India on Monday, a lot was expected from the trio of Manu Bhaker, Heena Sidhu and Shweta Singh.
However, Manu could only manage a score of 574 to finish 13th, while Sidhu was further down at 29th with a score of 571 and Singh was 45th with a score of 568.
The low scores also meant that they missed out on a medal in the team event as well, finishing fourth with an aggregate score of 1,713. China took the gold with a new world record score of 1,739, Korea was second with a score of 1,734 while Russia took the bronze with a total of 1,720.
