ISSF Munich World Cup: Rahi books Olympic quota, Saurabh sets new world record

It was a memorable day for India, as Saurabh Chaudhary had earlier shattered his own world record to win the men’s air pistol gold in style. With three gold medals, following the opening gold by Apurvi Chandela in women’s air rifle on Sunday, India was proudly on top of the medals table.

Rahi Sarnobat was brilliant in the final, especially in the climax, as she returned repeated rounds of perfect five. It was the second gold in a World Cup for Rahi after the one in Changwon, Korea, in 2013.

Asian Games gold medalist Rahi Sarnobat beat reigning World and former Olympic champion Olena Kostevych 37-36 for the gold and an Olympic quota in women’s sports pistol in the Shooting World Cup in Munich on Monday.

It was a memorable day for India, as Saurabh Chaudhary had earlier shattered his own world record to win the men’s air pistol gold in style. With three gold medals, following the opening gold by Apurvi Chandela in women’s air rifle on Sunday, India was proudly on top of the medals table.

The 28-year-old Rahi was brilliant in the final, especially in the climax, as she returned repeated rounds of perfect five. It was the second gold in a World Cup for Rahi after the one in Changwon, Korea, in 2013.

It was the sixth Olympic quota for India after the ones won by Anjum Moudgil, Apurvi Chandela, Saurabh Chaudhary, Divyansh Singh Panwar and Abhishek Verma for the Tokyo  2020 Games.

READ: Apurvi Chandela wins 10m air rifle gold at Munich World Cup

Rahi had qualified for the final with an impressive score of 586, followed one point behind by Manu Bhaker. However, in the final, Manu missed out on a medal and the Olympic quota following a zero in the seventh series, a shocker as she was in the joint lead till then.

Meanwhile, the 17-year-old Saurabh shot 246.3 in the final to beat the qualification topper Artem Chernousov of Russia by 2.5 points for the gold. In the process, the Youth Olympics, World Junior and Asian Games champion, Saurabh bettered his own world record of 245.0 set in New Delhi in February and the world junior record of 245.5 set by him in
the World Championship in Korea last year.

After qualifying with the second best score of 586, Saurabh was a class act in the final, in asserting his overwhelming supremacy in a strong field which had 162 shooters in all.

Saurabh had been forced to compete in the MQS section in the last World Cup in Beijing, as the National Federation had wanted to maximise the chances of shooters winning Olympic quota places. But, once Abhishek Verma captured the second Olympic quota, Saurabh got
back into the main team, as a country can only win a maximum of two Olympic quota places in an event.