Ankur Mittal, Ahvar Rizvi Win Silver in Double Trap as India Win First Gold at Moscow Shotgun World Championship

New Delhi, September 05, 2017: Ankur Mittal added a World Championship Silver to his kitty of medals (two Gold and a Silver) for the year, setting himself up for a final thrust back to where the year started- in the New Delhi ISSF World Cup Finals slated for October. In the process, he became only the fourth individual Indian Shotgun shooter at the senior level to win a medal at the World Championship after Dr. Karni Singh, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and Manavjit Singh Sandhu.
 
At the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Championship Shotgun being held at Moscow region’s Fox Lodge Shooting Range, Ankur, after shooting brilliantly throughout the day (topped qualifying with 145/150) and through the 80-shot final, narrowly lost out in the end to Russia’s Vitaly Fokeev. The Russian was also the 2006 World Champion. Fokeev took the crown with 68 to Ankur’s 66. Binyuan Hu of China took Bronze with 50.
 
Sangram Dahiya ended in 20th place with 135, while Md. Asab came in 23rd with 133 hits in the qualifying round. The trio combined for a fifth spot in the Team category with 413 points, where Italy won Gold with 418.
 
In the Junior Men’s event two Indians Shardul Vihan and Ahvar Rizvi topped qualifying to get into the top six. Shardul shot 139 to be the sole leader of the pack. Ahvar shot 138 and then topped a three-way shoot-off to determine positions, to qualify for the finals in second place.
 
In the Shoot-off, Ahvar shot 10 targets in a row to beat Australian Mitchell Iles-Crevatin (9) and Ying Qi (3) of China to the third and fourth qualifying spots.
 
Their efforts along with that of Shapath Bhradwaj’s effort of 124 meant that India won the Team Gold in the event with a combined score of 401. Italy won Silver with 389 and China Bronze with 387.
 
In the individual final, Ahvar carried his shoot-off momentum and shot brilliantly to lead for right till the end, but lost the Gold in the last two targets to talented Briton James Dedman. Ahvar finished with 66 out of 80 targets with Dedman a point ahead on 67. Dedman won Bronze in the senior category at the New Delhi World Cup stage event earlier this year, as well as a Junior World Cup Gold very recently in Italy.
 
Shardul was the first to bow out of the final in sixth position, shooting 19 targets out of the first 30.
 
Italy is on top of the medal table so far with six Gold medals and a total of 11 medals. India is in fourth spot with one Gold and two Silver medals. The Men’s and Women’s Skeet competitions now remain.