Mixed air rifle gold for Shriyanka Sadangi and Akhil Sheoran

The Indian pair, which had qualified in the third place behind two Russian teams surged ahead of the pack in the five-team final.

File Photo: Akhil Sheoran (Centre) poses with his gold medal after the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Men Final at the Club "Cinegetico Jalisciense, A.C." during Day 8 of the ISSF World Cup Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun in March, 2018.

Shriyanka Sadangi and Akhil Sheoran won the mixed air rifle gold in the H&N Cup international shooting championship in Munich, Germany, on Sunday.

The Indian pair, which had qualified in the third place behind two Russian teams surged ahead of them in the five-team final. Shriyanka and Akhil put 502.9 points on the board to beat the second Russian team of Daria Vdovina and Vladimir Maslennikov by two points.

It was an interesting finish for the Indian camp, which had earlier won the women’s air rifle gold through Vinita Bhardwaj, and the air pistol bronze by Heena Sidhu.

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Asian Games silver medallist Deepak Kumar had missed the men’s air rifle bronze by 0.1 point, to Sergey Richter of Israel, after qualifying with an impressive total of 630.4. In fact, all the eight finalists shot 630 plus scores, for a mind blowing average of 10.5 per shot over 60 shots.

Dane Sampson of Australia won the gold 0.3 point ahead of the London Olympics champion Alin George Moldoveanu of Romania.

Akhil Sheoran had shot 628.4 for the 13th place, but salvaged a lot of pride by winning the mixed air rifle gold with Shriyanka.

The results: