World champion Sergey Kamenskiy of Russia lent an elegant touch of class to swing the gold firmly in his favour in men’s 10m air rifle, in the shooting World Cup at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Monday.
As the Indian camp relented a bit, after having won two gold medals on the first two days with world records and an Olympic quota to show, the rest of the world got a chance to showcase its ability in the beautiful setting of the Final hall.
Brilliance is often a misused word but it fits well for the world No.1 Kamenskiy, the Rio Olympics silver medallist, as he was close to perfection in the final leaving everyone behind, clinching the gold 2.4 point ahead of the Chinese Liu Yunkun, the qualification topper.
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As it happened
Only after taking a 2.9 point lead did the Russian relax a bit, as he delivered a 9.8 on the penultimate shot. There was no catching up, but Liu Yukun and the fourth placed Martin Strempfl of Austria had the satisfaction of securing the Olympic quota places for Tokyo 2020.
The third placed Chinese Hui Zicheng along with Kamenskiy had won the quota in the World Championship last year.
In fact, Kamenskiy had missed the gold by 0.1 point in the rifle 3-position event on Sunday, which saw the third placed Marco De Nicolo of Italy take the second quota place behind champion Istvan Peni of
Hungary.
The Chinese have already collected four of the 10 quota places won in the current World Cup, to take their tally to 14. India has taken its collection to three, with the
quota won by Saurabh Chaudhary in men’s air pistol .
Hungary has won two quota places so far here, while Italy, Serbia and Austria have won one each.
Two quota places each are available in women’s rifle 3-position and air pistol events on Tuesday. As announced, the rapid fire pistol quota places have been held back to be distributed in the next World Cups, on the direction of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The Indian challenge fell short in men’s air rifle, as the young Divyansh Singh Panwar shot 627.2 and missed the final by 1.2 point. Ravi Kumar was 0.2 point further away.
It was the first competition for Ravi after he had undergone surgery following an injection infection on his hip recently. He missed going for competitive preparation in Europe and was in fact forced to take bed rest for about 20 days, before resuming shooting in the preparatory camp.
From that perspective, Ravi was back to his good level of shooting, even though he had to fight till the end, undaunted by the 9.6s that shook his progress.
Deepak Kumar, the Asian Games silver medallist, who gave himself adequate exposure in Europe, with good performances, could muster only 624.3 for the 34th spot.
In men’s 25-metre rapid fire pistol, Commonwealth Games gold medallist Anish Bhanwala shot 294 out of 300 in the precision phase, to be in the third place. The rapid fire section will be shot on Tuesday, followed by the final for the top six.
In women’s 50-metre rifle elimination phase, former World Champion Tejaswini Sawant struggled to 1146 and failed to make the cut for the qualification stage. Sunithi Chauhan (1168) and Gaayathri Nithyanandam (1166) made it to the qualification phase.
In the MQS section, Kajal Saini (1165) and world record holder Anjum Moudgil (1164) put up a decent performance.
The results
10m air rifle
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