China Dominating New Delhi Shooting World Cup With Three Out of Five Gold Medals At End of Competition Day Two

India Make Both Finals on the Day But Miss Medals
 
New Delhi, February 25, 2016: China’s domination of the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Ranges continued even as hosts India continued to make Final rounds but Pooja Ghatkar’s opening day Bronze in the Women’s 10M Air Rifle remain their only medal till now. At the end of competition day two of the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup (Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun) New Delhi 2017, China was sitting atop the medal standings with three Golds and two Silver medals while Australia and Italy have picked up one Gold each from the Shotgun Ranges. India is among nine out of 50 countries to be on the medal tally.

In the day’s first medal event, the Men’s 25M Rapid Fire Pistol, India’s Neeraj Kumar qualified for the six-man final with a qualifying round score of 579. It was the young 22-year olds first World Cup Final and the inexperience showed as he could not recover from a bad start eventually finished sixth. It was another Chinese 1-2 at the top however as Jiajie Lao struck Gold shooting a score of 31 in the finals to tie with Silver winning compatriot Junmin Li but eventually getting the better of him 5-3 in the shoot-off which followed to separate them. Ruslan Lunev of Azerbaijan won the Bronze, which was also his country’s first World Cup shooting medal ever.

In the Men’s Trap, India’s Zoravar Singh Sandhu made it to the Final round in fourth position with a score of 118. In the six-man Final round he was joined by among others Italy’s Rio Olympic Silver medalist Giovanni Pellielo and Spain’s former world champion Alberto Fernandez. Zoravar fought hard but had to eventually settle for fourth position when he tied at 28 points with Fernandez but had to bow out because of a lower qualifying rank. If he had hit his last shot he would have been assured of a medal. The Gold in the event went to Italy’s 21-year old former Junior World Champion Simone D Ambrosio who shot 45 to push countryman Pellielo to second place with a score of 43. Spain’s Fernandez settled for the Bronze shooting a score of 33 in the Final.

It was also a historic occasion when the first mixed gender event ever in the history of the ISSF World Cup was tested out at the start of the day. Each country could field two teams each and of the six teams, which qualified for the finals, both the Chinese teams made it through and eventually China 1 came out on top while Japan came second and China 2 came third.

Sunday, the third competition day of the New Delhi Shooting World Cup will see two Finals with the women’s 10M Air Pistol scheduled for 11am and the Men’s 50M Rifle 3 Positions scheduled for 1pm. Indian hopes will be led in Pistol by Heena Sidhu, a former World number one and world record holder, while in Rifle, the experienced Sanjeev Rajput will be the best bet for a medal.