India takes top-three spots in women's air rifle rankings

Elavenil Valarivan climbed up from No. 16 to the third spot, while Apurvi Chandela and Anjum Moudgil retained their place in the top two in rankings.

Apurvi Chandela retained her No. 1 ranking in 10m Air Rifle.

Indian shooting had never had this good as Apurvi Chandela, Anjum Moudgil and Elavenil Valarivan were placed 1-2-3 in women’s air rifle rankings, released by the International Shooting Federation.

With Elavenil jumping up from No. 16 to the third spot, while Apurvi and Anjum having retained their place in the top two, it was dominance by the Indian shooters in a ranking list featuring 237 names from around the world in women’s air rifle.

In fact, nobody jumped this big as Sanjeev Rajput who came out of obscurity to clinch the men’s 50-metre rifle 3-position silver and the Olympic quota place in the just concluded Rio World Cup. Sanjeev moved from the 75th spot to be ranked eighth. It could have been better but Sanjeev missed the gold by 0.2 point on the last shot in Rio.

Read: India tops medal tally for fourth successive shooting World Cup

Yashaswini Singh Deswal who clinched the gold and the Olympic quota in women’s air pistol moved from 30 to the fourth spot in the ranking list.

Rahi Sarnobat who competed in the MQS event in the 25-metre sports pistol slipped from the sixth to the ninth rank.

In men’s air pistol, there was a slight shuffle with gold medallist Abhishek Verma moving to the second spot and Saurabh Chaudhary reaching third.