India's Singhraj clinches gold in 2021 World Shooting Para Sport World Cup; Manish Narwal finishes fourth

Al Ain: India’s Singhraj displayed his skills to win a gold medal at the Al Ain 2021 World Shooting Para Sport World Cup. He bagged the top honours in P1 men’s 10m air pistol SH1 finals. Singhraj, the Sydney 2019 World Championships medallist, pipped Rio 2016 bronze medallist Server Ibragimov by 2.8 points. The final score read 236.8-234. In fact, after the penultimate final series, Ibragimov was leading by just 0.1 point. In the final series, the Indian had better control as he shot a 9.9 and 10.4, while the Uzbekistan shooter managed 9.5 and 7.9 to settle for the silver. Turkey’s former Paralympic champion Muharrem Korhan Yama took the bronze with 214.4 points. World Championships medallist Manish Narwal, who had qualified in second place, had to settle for fourth place with 194.3 points. Rahul Jakhar, who had claimed a bronze medal in P3 mixed 25m air pistol SH1, finished in eighth place. Singhraj’s gold also pushed India (one gold, one bronze) to the third place in the medals table behind Ukraine (three gold, three silver and a bronze) and the hosts United Arab Emirates (two gold). “I am very happy to win this gold after such a long time. Coming to this World Cup, I was very confident to get a good result here as I had trained very hard during the COVID-19 lockdown,” said Singhraj. “My first international was here in Al Ain 2018, but I missed out the gold. In 2019 also, I had to settle for the silver. I want to continue this momentum and get a good result in Tokyo 2020.” In the P2 women’s 10m air pistol SH1, the promising Rubina Francis finished in eighth place. Francis had qualified in the fourth place with a score of 562. The highlight of the day was Iran’s Paralympic champion Sareh Javanmardi clinching the P2 women’s 10m air pistol SH1 gold with a world record equalling final score of 237.7. On Sunday, Mahavir Swaroop Unhalkar finished fifth in R1 men’s 10m air rifle standing SH1, which was won by Ukraine’s Andrii Doroshenko.