Apurvi Chandela put up a remarkable display to claim her second gold medal of the season as she dominated the women’s air rifle event on the opening day of the shooting World Cup in Munich on Sunday.
After qualifying at the top with 633.0 in a strong field of 149 shooters, the 26-year-old Apurvi shot 251.0 in the final to beat Wang Luyao of China by 0.2 point for the gold. Apurvi, who had competed in the Rio Olympics, had won the gold in the first World Cup this season in Delhi, with a world record 252.9 in the final.
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Apurvi Chandela secures top position in 10m Air Rifle rankings
Trailing by 0.4 point before the last four shots against the Wang, Apurvi turned the tide in her favour with shots of 10.7 and 10.8 to take a 0.5 point lead. Wang shot better in the last two attempts to bridge the gap.
Elavenil Valarivan also had qualified for the final, in the second place with a total of 632.7, but missed a medal by 0.1 point to the Chinese who swept the silver and bronze medals. World Championship silver medallist Anjum Moudgil shot 628.9 for the 11th place, and missed the final by 1.1 point.
Since Anjum and Apurvi had won the maximum possible two Olympic quota places for the country in this event in the last World Championship in Korea, and the Chinese had also won the quota places earlier, Laura-Georgeta Coman of Romania and Eszter Meszaros of Hungary won the Olympic quota by being placed fifth and sixth respectively.
In women’s 25-metre sports pistol, Olympian and Asian Games gold medallist Rahi Sarnobat put herself in a strong position by shooting 294 out of 300 at the half way stage. The rapid fire section will be shot on Monday, followed by the final. Manu Bhaker had shot 289 while Chinki Yadav stumbled to 276, which placed her 95th among 105 shooters.
In the men’s 50-metre rifle 3-position elimination round, Chain Singh (1174) and Parul Kumar (1169) had done well, but Olympian Sanjeev Rajput could muster only 1153, which may not fetch him a berth in the qualification stage on Monday.
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