The Indian women’s team of Manu Bhaker, Rhythm Sangwan and Naamya Kapoor struck gold in the 25m pistol event to continue the country’s domination at the ongoing International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF)’s Junior World Championship here. The Indian team beat US 16-4 in the gold medal match.
The country’s 20th medal came in the men’s trap team event in which the Indians secured a silver, going down to Italy 4-6.
The trio of Bakhtyaruddin Malek, Shardul Vihan and Vivaan Kapoor had qualified for the match after being placed second out of seven teams in qualification, with a combined score of 473 out of 525.
Italy was strong throughout the competition having topped qualification with a huge 486.
Earlier, Bhaker secured her fourth gold of the competition to go with one bronze, while it was the 14-year-old Kapoor’s second gold of the championship. She had become the newly-crowned world junior champion in the individual 25m pistol event.
India also picked up a silver medal in the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol event when Adarsh Singh lost to US’s Henry Turner Leverett in the six-man final.
At the end of day eight of the championship on Wednesday, India topped the medal tally with nine gold, seven silver and three bronze. US were second with five gold and a total of 16 medals.
Manu, Rhythm and Naamya faced little competition throughout as they took a commanding lead of 10-4 before the beginning of the eighth series of rapid-fire shots and then closed out at 16-4.
On Tuesday, they had finished on top of round one qualification with a combined effort of 878, which was six points clear of the second placed French team.
Later that day, they topped round two as well to ease into the gold medal match with a score of 446. US joined them in the final with a score of 437.
In the men’s 25m rapid fire, India had three finalists out of six with the twins Udhayveer and Vijayveer Sidhu making it through alon g with Adarsh Singh.
Udhayveer was the best Indian in qualification with a score of 577 and finished fourth, while Adarsh was fifth with 574 and Vijayveer took the sixth and final qualification spot with 572.
