ISSF World Championship 2022 HIGHLIGHTS: No Indians make 25m rapid fire pistol final

ISSF World Championship 2022: Catch the action, commentary, highlights, updates and more from the first Paris 2024 quota-bearing competition for rifle and pistol events in Cairo.

FILE PHOTO: Vijayveer Sidhu at the 36th National Games in Gujarat. | Photo Credit: VIJAY SONEJI

Welcome to the highlights of the ISSF Rifle/Pistol World Championship 2022 in Cairo, Egypt. This was Santadeep Dey, bringing you all the action.

HIGHLIGHTS

The men’s 25m pistol finalists. | Photo Credit: ISSF

• Vijayveer Sidhu with a disappointing 289 in stage 2. He finishes 11th and will not play the final.
• Vijay Kumar starts with a perfect series. However, a 96 and 97 in the next two series sees him drop to 20th.
• Poland’s Oskar Miliwek pips Anish to the 33rd spot. Hits a perfect first series in the secind stage followed by a 95 and 96.

Anish’s target map | Photo Credit: ISSF

• Two more 98s see Anish finish with an overall score of 575. He is 31st with around half the field yet to take to the lane.
• Anish Bhanwala starts with a 98. He hasn’t had the greatest of competitions, having scored only 281 in the first stage.
• Bartok has the best combined score after two relays - 560 (278 in Stage 1, 282 in Stage 2).
• The second relay has started. No Indian shooters here as well. Csaba Bartok of Hungary starts off with a 96.
• All participants in the first relay are right at the bottom of the pile. The best placed shooter among them is Guatemalan Jose Pablo Vidal Catillo Aguilar (66th).

Another exciting India vs Pakistan contest is on the cards today. IND’s Vijayveer Sidhu and PAK’s Ghulam Mustafa Bashir will be fighting for a place in the final in men’s 25m rapid fire pistol. While Vijayveer is third after Stage 1, Bashir is ninth.

TODAY’S SCHEDULE IN IST ( Senior quota-bearing events only)

2:30pm: 25m rapid fire pistol men stage 2

8:30pm: Final 25m pistol men

PREVIEW

Olympians Manu Bhaker, Elavenil Valarivan, Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Anjum Moudgil and Vijay Kumar headline the list of 22 senior Indian athletes eligible for a Paris Olympics 2024 quota at the ISSF Rifle and Pistol World Championship, starting October 12 in Cairo.

Contemporaries Vijayveer Sidhu and Rhythm Sangwan will feature in two individual events each and hence are the only shooters who will have two shots at the quota places.

A total of 32 Olympic quotas will be on offer in the Egyptian capital. Of these, eight quotas – four in men and as many in women’s disciplines – will be in each 10m air rifle, 50m rifle 3 positions, and 10m air pistol. There will also be eight quotas up for equal distribution between participants in men’s 25m rapid fire pistol and women’s 25m sports pistol.

In the ongoing Olympic cycle – which started on August 14 this year and will conclude on June 9, 2024 – 32 berths in the Paris 2024 bus have already been taken via competitions. Only one of these has been won by India, thus far, with Bhowneesh Mendiratta finishing fourth in men’s trap at the recently concluded Shotgun Worlds in Osijek.

There are 340 Paris Olympic quotas assigned to the world body of shooting by the International Olympic Committee. While 300 of these are rewarded through competitions, the remaining are distributed to the host (12), Universality place holders (16) and the highest-ranked athletes in each discipline during the Olympic qualification period (12).

With each National Olympic Committee allowed 24 quotas (12 for men and 12 for women) across all events, there is much to fight for.

Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil and Arjun Babuta are favourites to lay hands on India's first rifle quota on October 14. Babuta, currently ranked No. 1 in the country, gave a glimpse of exemplary mental strength after finishing with a silver medal in the 36th National Games in Gujarat, despite just managing to squeeze through to the eight-man final earlier. Patil was the gold medallist at the event.

Among women, all eyes will be on Mehuli Ghosh, who has, in 2022, started training at Gagan Narang’s Gun for Glory, having moved over from the Joydeep Karmakar Shooting Academy. Her coach Bibaswan Ganguly is confident of her chances, the shooter having maintained the best average score of 629.58 among all 10m rifle wielders in NRAI’s Stage 2 and Stage 3 competitions, which concluded with the sixth selection trials in August.

Meanwhile, Vijayveer will be India’s best bet to return home with a pistol quota. Participating in both 10m air and 25m rapid fire pistol, the Punjab lad is on a hot streak, having won both the 10m air pistol events (individual and mixed) at NGG 2022. The individual round would serve as more of a confidence booster, with him having scored an emphatic 17-5 win over Shiva Narwal. He had missed the 25m rapid fire event as he had to appear for an examination.

With Bhaker suffering from a poor run of form and Esha Singh in the junior team, Rhythm emerges as the strongest contender for a pistol quota among women. The Haryana shooter was consistent with her performances in Gujarat 2022, winning three medals in 10m air pistol (silver in individual and bronze in mixed team) and 25m sports pistol (silver).

The contest in 50m 3P is tighter, and it will all depend on who can keep their calm on the day of the competition.

- Santadeep Dey

WHERE TO WATCH ISSF SHOOTING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP?

A few finals will be available for live streaming on Olympics’ official YouTube channel.