India opened their account at the Baku Shooting World Cup, Azerbaijan with a Gold medal on Tuesday, May 31. The trio of Elavenil Valarivan, Ramita, and Shreya Agrawal won Gold in the 10m Air Rifle Team event at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup, being held at Baku. They defeated the Danish team 17-5 in the Gold medal match.
On Monday, the trio went through two rounds of qualification to reach the gold medal match. Led by Tokyo Olympian Elavenil Valarivan’s impressive performance, India defeated Denmark 17-5 in the gold medal match. Elavenil Valarivan shot above 10 in all the 11 series’ in the final. The Indian trio had earlier topped the qualification stage 1 with a score of 944.4 – 0.2 points more than second-placed South Korea.
Denmark, represented by Anna Nielsen, Emma Koch, and Rikke Maeng Ibsen had beaten the Indian team in the last eight stages. However, this time, the Indian shooters stepped up to beat their arch enemies. Meanwhile, Poland won the Bronze medal in the event.
Men’s result
The Indian Men’s Air Rifle team, Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil, Paarth Makhija, and Deaflympics champion Dhanush Srikanth, came short in their Bronze medal match against Croatia, going down by 10-16. The Indian men were second in qualification stage 1 and third in stage 2. The top eight teams from the 14 competing made it to the second stage.
Indian shooters will now compete in the 50m rifle 3 positions events from Thursday. India is fifth on the medal tally with Serbia leading the field with two Golds and a total of four medals. Korea with two Golds and one Bronze is placed at the 2nd spot and 1 Gold and Silver each and 2 Bronze is 3rd on the medal tally.
