MUNICH, May 28: Indian shooter Sakshi Padekar finished seventh in the 10m Air Rifle women’s final on day three of the ISSF World Cup here on Thursday.
The 22-year-old from Maharashtra qualified for the finals in third place after shooting 635.1, only behind World No. 1 Wang Zifei of China and Paris Olympics champion Hyojin Ban of South Korea.
The 18-year-old Andelija Stevanovic of Serbia, also in her debut senior World Cup, clinched the gold with a total score of 252.3 in a tight contest that was decided in the final shot.
Japan’s Nobata Misaki also secured her first ever senior World Cup medal, securing the silver with a score of 252.0. Wang Zifei won bronze after shooting 231.1, while Olympic champion Ban finished in fourth.
Sakshi started the final with a 10.5 before shooting 9.7 and 9.8. She recovered to hit a 10.8 and 10.7 next to end the first series with 51.5 and take the sixth spot.In the second series, she shot 10.6, 10.4, 10.6, 10.0 and 10.5 for a total of 52.1 to maintain her sixth spot.
In the first of the single shots, Sakshi hit two shots of 10.3 to maintain her spot and followed it up with two 10.5 in the 13th shot to take a lead of 0.4 above Oceanne Mueller who was in seventh position.The French shooter hit a massive 10.9 in the 14th shot to force a shoot-off with the Indian who hit a 10.5 in her 14th shot.
In the shoot-off, Sakshi could manage only 10.5 after Mueller hit a 10.7 to finish in seventh place with a final score of 145.2. Mueller survived one more elimination to finish in fifth.Elavenil Valarivan finished in 19th spot with a score of 632.1, while Arya Borse finished in 63rd spot with a score of 627.6 in a highly competitive field.
The field comprised 146 shooters with the top 12 shooters finishing with a score of 633.0 or more, underlining the high level of competition in the event.
Vidarsa K. Vinod (630.6) and Tilottama Sen (630.1), competing for ranking points, finished in 27th and 32nd places respectively.In other results, Olympian Anish Bhanwala ended Stage 1 of the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol with a score of 290-10x, in 18th place and kept his hopes of a top eight spot alive.(PTI)
