ISSF Junior World Cup: Anish Bhanwala claims gold, Esha Singh bags silver to consolidate India's top-spot in medal tally

Anish Bhanwala on Wednesday won his second ISSF Junior World Cup gold in the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol, while Esha Singh bagged a silver in women’s 10m air pistol, consolidating India’s top position in Suhl, Germany. [caption id=“attachment_5041701” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Anish Bhanwala. PTI[/caption] Competing on day four, Anish shot a solid 584 in qualification to top the charts and lead a three-man Indian contingent into the six-man final. In the final, Anish led from the front and never shot below three hits out of five in each of the 10 series of shots. He finished with 29 to easily leave behind Russian Egor Ismakov, who shot 23 for silver. Anish had won his first Junior World Cup gold in the event in Sydney last year. Since then, he also made his first senior final earlier this year. German Florian Peter won bronze with 19, beating India’s Adarsh Singh in a shoot-off. Adarsh shot a score of 17. In the women’s 10m air pistol final, 14-year-old teen sensation Esha shot a total of 236.6 to claim silver behind Turkey’s Sevval Ilayda Tarhan (241.8) and ahead of Yasemin Beyza Yilmaz (215.4), also from Turkey. This was the talented Hyderabad girl’s first ISSF medal after being crowned national champion last year where she beat India’s best shooters. Agneya Kaushik, the third Indian in the men’s rapid fire final came sixth with nine hits. Agneya, however, combined with Rajkanwar Singh Sandhu and Udhayveer Sidhu to win the team bronze with a total of 1709. They got the better of Anish, Adarsh Singh and Harshawardhan Yadav, who finished a point behind in fourth. India won two more medals on the day in the 10m air rifle mixed team junior. The pair of Shreya Agrawal and Yash Vardhan won silver, finishing behind the Iranian pair of A Sadeghian and A Zolfagharia 17-11 in the final. Mehuli Ghosh and Hriday Hazarika won the bronze in the event by beating USA in the bronze medal match. India now has eight gold, nine silver and four bronze medals from the tournament for a total of 21 medals.