ISSF Junior World Championship: Manu Bhaker Shoots Fourth Gold In Lima, India Lead Medal Tally

Indian women’s troika of Manu Bhaker, Naamya Kapoor and Rhythm Sangwan claimed the gold medal in the 25m Pistol team event at the ISSF Junior World Championship in Lima on Wednesday. This was Bhaker’s fourth gold medal in the competition. (Other Sports News)

The Indian women’s team defeated the USA team comprising Abbie Russell Leverett, Katelyn Morgan Abeln and Ada Claudia Korkhin 16-4 in the final. France’s Camille Jedrzejewski, Heloise Fourre and Elisa Candel won the bronze medal, beating Ukraine 17-7 in the third-place play-off.

On the day, India also picked up a silver medal in the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol junior men’s competition when Adarsh Singh fell short of USA’s Henry Turner Leverett in the six-man final.

In the junior women’s 25m Pistol team competition, the crack Indian trio of Manu, Rhythm and Naamya, faced little competition throughout. On Tuesday, they had finished on top of round one qualification with a combined effort of 878, which was six points clear of the second placed French team.

Later that day they topped round two as well to ease into the gold medal match with a score of 446. Team USA joined them in the final with a score of 437. In the gold medal match, the Indian team took a commanding lead of 10-4 before the beginning of the eighth series of rapid-fire shots, before closing out at 16-4.

In the junior men’s 25m Rapid Fire, India had three finalists out of six with the twins Udhayveer and Vijayveer Sidhu making it through along with Adarsh Singh. Udhayveer was the best Indian in qualification with a score of 577 and finished fourth, while Adarsh was fifth with 574 and Vijayveer took the sixth and final qualification spot with 572.

The twins Udhayveer and Vijayveer were the first to go out in the final though, with Udhayveer getting nine hits in the first 20-shots to finish sixth. Vijayveer finished fifth, going out in the next series with 13 hits out of 25.

Adarsh however started the final strong with a perfect 10 out of 10 in the first two series. However, USA’s Henry Turner Leverett turned out to be the most accurate in this match and finished with 32-hits out of 40 to win gold, with Adarsh finishing with 28 to win silver.

Earlier in the first medal event of the day, the 50m Rifle Prone mixed team, India finished outside the medals. The pair of Sift Kaur Samra and Surya Pratap Singh made it to the second qualification round, eventually finishing sixth with a combined score of 409.5.

Ashi Chouksey and Sanskar Havelia finished ninth out 11 pairs in round one of qualification with a combined score of 604.0. The first eight pairs made it to round two. India still sit on top of the medal tally, now with nine gold, seven silver and three bronze medals. USA lie second with five gold and a total of 16 medals.