ISSF World Championships: No medals for Indian shooters on Day 9; junior men's skeet team claims top spot in qualifying

Changwon, South Korea: India’s junior men’s skeet team claimed the top spot after day one of qualifying to be in contention for gold but the country failed to fetch any medals or Olympic quota places at the ISSF World Championship in Changwon on Monday. Gurnihal Singh Garcha shot 73 out of 75 to be in second place, Anantjeet Singh Naruka 71 to lie 11th, while Ayush Rudraraju shot 70 to take up the individual 12th place on day one of the junior men’s skeet qualifiers. [caption id=“attachment_4585071” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Getty[/caption] Their combined score of 214, put them in top spot in the team event, a point ahead of Team Cyprus. Tuesday will see two more qualifying rounds followed by the individual final. However, Commonwealth Games gold-medallist Anish Bhanwala, 15, could not make the finals of the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol event, missing out by three points. India ended day nine of the International Shooting Sport Federation’s (ISSF) premier event fourth on the medals tally with 20 medals, including seven gold. Also finishing fourth and just outside the medals was Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar in the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions junior event. Aishwarya shot 1155 to qualify for the finals in fifth place. In the eight-man final, Aishwarya came into medal position at several junctures but eventually finished fourth with a score of 431.7. Iran’s Ali Nekounam won gold, first in three medals he has won in the championship. Anish shot 581 in the qualification round, following a solid round of 292 in the rapid fire stage Monday. But he fell short of the sixth and final qualifying spot by three points. The youngster shot the same score as Christian Reitz, the reigning Olympic champion, who also did not qualify. China’s Lin Junmin won the gold in the event. In the same field, Gurpreet Singh shot 570 in qualifiers to finish 43rd, while Shivam Shukla shot 568 to end 46th. In the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions (junior), Fateh Singh Dhillon shot 1138 in qualifiers to finish 38th, followed by C Sam George Sajan, who scored 1124 for the 47th position. The team finished 10th with a score of 3417. In the women’s 300m rifle prone, Lajja Gauswami managed 577 in qualifiers to end 17th. Ranajana Gupta shot 556 to finish 33rd.