ISSF Rifle/Pistol World Cup 2019 Highlights: Panwar bags Olympic quota, silver in 10m Air Rifle
Divyansh Singh Panwar fell just 0.4 points short of the gold medal in the 10m Air Rifle Final.
Published : Apr 26, 2019 07:01 IST
Good morning! Hello and welcome to the highlights of the ISSF Rifle/Pistol World Cup 2019 in Beijing, China.
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25m Rapid Fire Pistol Final: China's Lin Junmin leapfrogs the qualification topper, Germany's Oliver Geis to pocket the gold medal with a score of 35. |
FINAL 10M AIR RIFLE MEN
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Meanwhile, India fails to bag medals/quotas in 25m Rapid Fire Pistol as Adarsh Singh (10th), Anish Bhanwal (22nd) and Arpit Goel (29th) crash out.
2015 winner Fort Benning gold medallist, Germany's Oliver Geis topped the Qualification. 10m Air Rifle:Deepak Kumarmanages to score only 622.6 which means Divyansh Singh Parmar would be the only Indian fighting it out in the final at 10:40 AM. He would be eyeing a second gold, and more importantly, an Olympic quota.
The eight finalists would look to clinch medals and win Olympic quotas when they meet in the finals. Divyansh Singh Parmar is the only Indian who made the cut. - Deepak Kumar starts off by shooting a 103.7 and then a 103.5 in the first two series of the 10m Air Rifle Men Qualification Relay 2.
- 10m Air Rifle Men - MQS Extra: Tejas Krishna Prasad scores 620.7. The cut-off for the event is 595.0
- Divyansh finishes at the third spot after Relay 1 to stay in contention for the finals, with a score of 629.2. Ravi Kumar , however, has been knocked out.
- Divyansh just toppled Hungary's Istvan Peni , who had scored 459.1 to win the Men's 50m Rifle 3 Positions Final in the ISSF Rifle/ Pistol World Cup in New Delhi, earlier this year, to climb to the second spot on the table. What a comeback from the young lad!
- Bhavesh Shekhawat completes the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Men - MQS Extra Stage 2 with 297 points. Shekhawat finished with a total of 576 - 16x, which is well above the required cut-off of 560.
- Tejas Krishna Prasad who has been fielded in the 10m Air Rifle Men - MQS Extra has shot 307.6 in the first three series.
- We are almost done with the first three series of the 10m Air Rifle Men . The best show, so far, has been put up by Divyansh Singh Panwar , who won the mixed team gold with Anjum Moudgil on Thursday. He has shot 313.5 to move up to the eighth spot. Ravi Kumar , meanwhile, languishes at 37th. Deepak Kumar will be participating in the next relay which is scheduled to start at 08:30 AM IST.
The following Indians will be in action today:
10m Air Rifle Men: Deepak Kumar, Divyansh Singh Panwar, Ravi Kumar, and Tejas Krishna Prasad (MQS)
25m Rapid Fire Pistol Men: Anish Bhanwala, Arpit Goel, Adarsh Singh and Bhavesh Shekhawat (MQS)
Ravi Kumar, Deepak Kumar and Divyansh Singh Panwar will be in line to win the Olympic quota place in men’s air rifle today.
More significantly, the 25-metre rapid fire pistol shooters will have a better chance for Olympic quota as three will be on offer, unlike two in all other events.
It may be recalled that the rapid fire pistol quota places were withheld in the Delhi World Cup, as visa for two Pakistani rapid fire pistol shooters had been denied. Those two quota places will be given one each additionally in the Beijing and Munich World Cups.
Commonwealth Games gold medallist Anish Bhanwala, along with Arpit Goel and Adarsh Singh will fight for the quota places in rapid fire.
Highlights of Day 3:The Indian shooters asserted their undisputed class as they swept the gold medals in both the mixed air rifle and mixed air pistol competitions in the shooting World Cup in Beijing on Thursday. Even though there was no Olympic quota place on offer, as the mixed events had Olympic quotas only in the last World Championship in Korea, it was an incredible performance by the Indian teams, especially in the light of a completely new format that was adopted to make the event more lively. Anjum Moudgil and Divyansh Singh Panwar beat the Chinese to win the mixed air rifle gold and set the tempo for the day. Quite interestingly, Anjum and Divyansh had qualified in the sixth place, which in the old format may not have fetched them a berth in the medal phase. Read: 'Each shot is a decider when you don't have an Olympic quota' In the new format, the top eight teams qualify for the quarterfinals, followed by the semifinals and the gold and bronze medal matches thereafter. Interestingly, both the Indian rifle teams qualified for the knock-out phase, a commendable effort in a strong field of 62 teams, but the team of Apurvi Chandela and Deepak Kumar eventually finished sixth. In the mixed air pistol competition, Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary who had won the World Cup gold in Delhi and the Asian Air Gun gold thereafter, were the favourites and proved so. Manu and Saurabh beat the Chinese team of Jiang Ranxin and Pang Wie 16-6 in the gold medal match. The two teams had tied in the semifinals with 290 each, even though the Indian pair had a better accuracy of 15x to 10x. In the quarterfinals, the Indian pair had scored the second best score of 289, and had earlier qualified for the knock-out in the fifth place with 482 out of 500. "I like the new format. The ISSF has been practising this in the junior competitions in Suhl for many years. It is an exciting format even at the quarterfinal stage as outcome depends on which two teams are fighting together," revealed Olympian and rifle coach Deepali Deshpande. The coach explained that Anjum and Divyansh had tough draw of having to negotiate the Romanian team in the quarterfinals and the Russians in the semis. In the final, after each shot, the better scoring team gets two points. Whichever team reaches 16 first wins it. In case of a tie, as was the case with Anjum and Divyansh against the Chinese team, at 15-15, the Indian pair prevailed with the last shot, for a thrilling 17-15 triumph. It may be noted that with only two women shooters in air rifle (Anjum and Apurvi), and one in men’s air pistol (Saurabh) having won Olympic quota, India has to acquire the individual Olympic quotas in the World Cups and the Asian Championship to be able to form mixed pairs at the Tokyo Olympics next year. The results: Mixed air pistol: 1. India (Manu Bhaker, Saurabh Chaudhary) 16 (290, 289, 482); 2. China-A (Jiang Ranxin, Pang Wie) 6 (290, 291, 481); 3. Russsia (Vitalina Batsarashkina, Artem Chernousov) 16 (288, 2888, 488); 4. China (Qian Wei, Wang Meng Yi) 4 (287, 289, 482); 12. India-A (Heena Sidhu, Shahzar Rizvi) 479. Mixed air rifle: 1. India-A (Anjum moudgil, Divyansh Singh Panwar) 17 (311.8, 313.4, 522.7); 2. China-A (Liu Ruxuan, Yang Haoran) 15 (315.5, 312.2, 524.1); 3. Russia-A (Yulia Karimova, Grigorii Shamakov) 16 (310.9, 315.1, 523.8); 4. US (Alison Marie Weisz, Timothy Sherry) 2 (310.1, 310.1, 522.9); India (Apurvi Chandela, Deepak Kumar) 309.9 (522.8). |
Here is a rundown of Friday's events:
| Time (in IST) | Event |
| 06:30 AM - 07:45 AM | 10m Air Rifle Men Relay 1 |
| 06:30 AM - 10:30 AM | 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Men Stage 2 |
| 08:30 AM - 09:45 AM | 10m Air Rifle Men Relay 2 |
| 10:40 AM | Final 10m Air Rifle Men |
| 12:00 PM | Final |
A look at how things stood ahead of the Beijing World Cup:
A 28-member Indian team will aim to add to the three Olympic quota places won so far, in the World Cup starting in Beijing on Tuesday.
The young Saurabh Chaudhary -- the Asian Games air pistol champion, Youth Olympics champion and the World Junior champion -- was the only one to win the Olympic quota in the World Cup at home in February.
Anjum Moudgil and Apurvi Chandela had won the quota in women’s air rifle in the World Championship last year.
The opening day’s competition will feature women’s air rifle, which would only add to the competitive exposure for Anjum, Apurvi, Elavenil Valarivan, and the MQS shooter Mehuli Ghosh, as a country cannot win more than two Olympic quota in any event.
READ: Olympic quotas reallocated to World Cups in Beijing, Munich
The focus from the Indian perspective will thus be on Wednesday, when there will be women’s air pistol and men’s 50-metre rifle 3-position finals.
Manu Bhaker will be the one to watch, as the 12th standard student is No.1 in both air pistol and the 25-metre sports pistol. With two-time Olympian and former World record holder Heena Sidhu, apart from Yashaswini Deswal in the line up, India has a realistic chance of striking it hot in women’s air pistol.
Olympians Sanjeev Rajput and Chain Singh apart from Parul Kumar will attempt to make the rifle 3-position event memorable.
The mixed air rifle and air pistol finals will be held on Thursday, giving a chance for the Indian shooters to be better prepared for the new Olympic event, even though there will be no Olympic quota available.
Ravi Kumar, Deepak Kumar and Divyansh Singh Panwar will be in line to win the Olympic quota place in men’s air rifle, on Friday.
More significantly, the 25-metre rapid fire pistol shooters will have a better chance for Olympic quota as three will be on offer, unlike two in all other events.
It may be recalled that the rapid fire pistol quota places were withheld in the Delhi World Cup, as visa for two Pakistani rapid fire pistol shooters had been denied. Those two quota places will be given one each additionally in the Beijing and Munich World Cups.
Commonwealth Games gold medallist Anish Bhanwala, along with Arpit Goel and Adarsh Singh will fight for the quota places in rapid fire.
In men’s air pistol, in which Saurabh Chaudhary will be fielded in the MQS event to enhance the chances of a second Indian winning the Olympic quota, the onus will be on World Cup gold medallist Shahzar Rizvi, Asian Games bronze medallist Abhishek Verma and World Junior champion Arjun Singh Cheema to capitalise on the opportunity.
The World Cup will close with the finals in women’s 25-metre sports pistol and the 50-metre rifle 3-position events on Sunday. Asian Games gold medallist Rahi Sarnobat, apart from Manu Bhaker and Chinki Yadav will be competing in the pistol event.
Gaayathri Nithyanandam, Sunidhi Chauhan and Kajal Saini will try to prove that it is a fair decision to field the World record holder Anjum Moudgil in the MQS section in the event, so as to help the team strike further Olympic quota.
The presence of a battery of coaches, Samaresh Jung, Ved Prakash, Pavel Smirnov, Randhir Singh, Manoj Kumar, Oleg Mikhailov, Deepali Deshpande, Jaspal Rana and Suma Shirur would mean that it will be difficult to blame the absence of coaches for unsatisfactory performance!