India record best-ever finish at ISSF shooting World Cup

New Delhi, March 28: India pulled the curtains down on its best-ever ISSF World Cup campaign with two more gold medals here on Sunday, somewhat making up for missing out on the chance to swell its unprecedented tally of 15 Olympic quotas.
Dominating the event from start to end, hosts India topped the chart with an incredible tally of 30 medals, half of them being gold. The country also bagged nine silver and six bronze medals in what could be the last major international outing for rifle and pistol shooters before this summer’s Tokyo Olympics.
On the last competition day, shotgun shooters Prithviraj Tondaiman, Lakshay Sheoran and Kynan Chenai ended India’s campaign with a gold medal in the men’s trap team event.
Before that, the trio of Shreyasi Singh, Rajeshwari Kumari and Manisha Keer claimed the gold medal in the women’s trap team final after blanking Kazakhstan 6-0.
In the gold medal match, the team fielded by the host nation did not break a sweat as it romped to a crushing win over Kazakhstan’s Sarsenkul Rysbekova, Aizhan Dosmagambetova and Mariya Dmitriyenko, taking the number of gold won by India to 14 in the tournament.
Vijayveer Sidhu, Gurpreet Singh and Adarsh Singh looked off colour and settled for the silver medal in the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol team event.
The Kazakhstan team again went ahead only for the home shooters to rally one more time and make it 4-4. In the deciding round, India shot better to emerge 6-4 winners.
Kazakhstan’s Victor Khassyanov, Maxim Kolomoyets and Andrey Mogilevskiy bagged the bronze medal beating Qatar’s Mohammed Al Rumaihi, Saeed Abusharib and Nasser Ali Al Hemaidi 6-4.
Together, the Indian team of Prithviraj, Lakshay and Kynan aggregated 494 in the qualification held here on Thursday.
Kynan, who finished fourth in the individual men’s trap to miss out on a podium finish on Friday, had something to cheer about as he ended the campaign on a positive note.
In the women’s trap, the Indian shooters, especially the experienced Shreyasi and Manisha, missed very few shots in the final and proved to be too good for their opponents.
Commonwealth Games gold-medallist Shreyasi, Rajeshwari and Manisha scored 321 in the qualification rounds. Kazakhstan’s Rysbekova, Dosmagambetova and Dmitriyenko shot a total of 308.
In rapid fire Qualification 2, the Indian trio of Gurpreet, Vijayveer and Adarsh was second with a total score of 552, with the three shooting 184, 178, and 190 respectively. The American team of Keith, Jack and Henry topped this stage with an aggregate of 571.
While the visiting team shot a total of 868 in the qualification, the Indians managed 857 at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range. (PTI)