SaurabhChaudhary Wins Gold with a World Record and Tokyo 2020 Olympic Quota as India’s Good Showing in Home World Cup Continues

New Delhi, February 24, 2019: Pistol phenomena Saurabh Chaudhary set off wild celebrations in a packed Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range Finals Hall, as he left a classy eight-man 10m Air Pistol finals field way behind, to not only shoot Gold with a world record score of 245, but also clinch India’s third Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games quota place in the sport.

On competition day two of the ongoing International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Rifle/Pistol New Delhi 2019, the Meerut-boy Saurabh, first shot a score of 587 to qualify in third place for the final and then was relentless in the 24-shot final, ending a huge 5.7 points ahead of Silver winning Serbian DamirMikec, to enthrall the home-crowd.

While Damir secured the second available quota place for his country, former Olympic Champion Pang Wei of China finished third with a score of 215.2.

Saurabh on the day had five scores in the final in the 9s, but every-time he would come back with a high 10 to ensure he never let go of the top score, which he had from the very first series of five shots.

Saurabh now has both the junior and senior world records to his name. He shot the junior record last year at the Changwon world championship and his score there of 245.5 is in fact more than his senior world record score today.

This was also the second world record shot by an Indian shooter on consecutive days as ApurviChandela in the Women’s 10m Air Rifle had done the same on competition day one, en-route to winning Gold in the event.


In the days other results, Hungary’s young Rifle sensation IstvanPeni won the Men’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions event with a finals score of 459.1, overcoming Russian Sergey Kamenskiy by 0.1 points. Besides Peni, the second quota in the event, however went to Marco Di Nicolo of Italy who won Bronze with a score of 444.5

Earlier in the Men’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions qualification round, India’s Sanjeev Rajput finished 25th with a score of 1169 and Parul Kumar came in 22nd with a score of 1170.

There was heart-break for home fans in the Women’s 25m Pistol, where Youth Olympic Games champion Manu Bhaker, after shooting a brilliant 590 in qualification to finish second, ended fifth in the finals, finishing outside the medals and quota places.

Veronika Major of Hungary won Gold in the event while China’s Zhang Jingjing won Silver. The quotas also went to Hungary and China. Other Indians in fray in the event, RahiSarnobat and ChinkiYadav shot 580 each to finish 15th and 17th respectively.

Monday has one final lined up. Here is the schedule: