India tops medal tally for fourth successive shooting World Cup

Indian shooters asserted their dominance on the world stage yet again, as the team topped the medals table with five gold, two silver and two bronze medals.

Yashaswini Singh Deswal during her 10m Air Pistol final in shooting World Cup.

Indian shooters asserted their dominance on the world stage yet again, as the team topped the medals table with five gold, two silver and two bronze medals in the World Cup in Rio de Janeiro, which concluded on Monday.

In a heady climax, the Indian shooters won both the mixed air pistol and air rifle gold medals apart from the silver in the pistol event and bronze in the rifle competition.

It was fourth successive mixed air pistol gold in World Cups for the young Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary after the ones in Delhi, Beijing and Munich. This time it was stiff competition from compatriots Abhishek Verma and Yashaswini Singh Deswal before Manu and Saurabh prevailed 17-15 in the gold contest.

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In mixed air rifle, Deepak Kumar assuaged some of the hurt caused by the Olympic quota that eluded his grasp in men’s event, by clinching the gold with Apurvi Chandela. The bronze was bagged by Anjum Moudgil and Divyansh Singh Panwar, who had won the gold in the last World Cup in Munich, when India topped the table with five gold and a silver.

In the first World Cup in Delhi, India was on par with Hungary with three gold medals. It improved to three gold and a silver in the World Cup in Beijing.

China was a distant second in Rio with a gold, two silver and four bronze medals. In fact, no other country managed to win a second gold medal, as India swept 50 per cent of the gold. Croatia, Britain, Germany and Hungary were the other countries that managed to win a gold medal each.

The results:

Men: 25m rapid fire pistol: 1. Christian Reitz (Ger) 34 (588); 2. Oliver Geis (Ger) 32 (589); 3. Li Yuehong (Chn) 25 (588); 18. Anish Bhanwala 577; 25. Adarsh Singh 576; 30. Anhad Jawanda 573.

Mixed air rifle: 1. India (Apurvi Chandela, Deepak Kumar) 16 (419.1); 2. China (Yang Qian, Yu Haonan) 6 (418.7); 3. India-A (Anjum Moudgil, Divyansh Singh Panwar) 16 (418.0); 4. Hungary (Eszter Meszaros, Peter Sidi) 10 (418.6).

Mixed air pistol: 1. India-A (Manu Bhaker, Saurabh Chaudhary) 17 (394); 2. India (Yashaswini Singh deswal, Abhishek Verma) 15 (386); 3. China (Jiang Ranxin, Pang Wei) 16 (385); 4. Hungary (Veronika Major, Miklos Tatrai) 6 (194).