25 March,2021 06:47 AM IST | New Delhi | PTI
India’s sports minister Kiren Rijuju (left) with the winners of the women’s 25m pistol event, Rahi Sarnobat (second from left), Chinki Yadav and Manu Bhaker (right) in New Delhi yesterday
A dominant India swept the women's 25m pistol event with Chinki Yadav winning gold after Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar's historic top finish in the men's 50m rifle 3 positions final of the ISSF World Cup here on Wednesday.
At 20, Tomar became the youngest Indian ever to win gold in this event when he shot 462.5 to claim the top prize ahead of Hungary's World No. 1 Istvan Peni (461.6) and Denmark's Steffen Olsen (450.9).
After that, Yadav upstaged the experienced Rahi Sarnobat and the fancied Manu Bhaker to win gold in a 1-2-3 finish for India. The country's overall tally swelled to 19 with nine gold, five silver and as many bronze medals.
Yadav, 23, prevailed over Sarnobat, 30, 4-3 in a shoot-off after their scores were tied at 32. Bhaker, 19, shot 28 to settle for the bronze medal before being eliminated, leaving her two other compatriots to fight for the top prize at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range.
All three shooters have already bagged their quotas for the Tokyo Olympics. Yadav, who fetched the Olympic quota with a second-place finish at the 14th Asian Championships in Doha in 2019, led the pack after first 20 targets with a score of 14.
She was followed by Bhaker at second with 13. Then, the shooter from Bhopal led with a score of 21 and pulled away from the rest, even as the seasoned Sarnobat clawed her way back into the finals after struggling in bottom half. In the finals, Yadav shot all the five targets twice - in the first competition stage's second series and the sixth series of the elimination stage - after beginning with two.
"I have trained in advance for tie shoots in final, I just had to do my best, not think who is in competition with me and which level they are in," Yadav said.
Sarnobat, the most experienced of the three, had a five out of five in the third series of the first stage before shooting four targets thrice in the fourth, seventh and ninth series in elimination. The third ranked Bhaker had only one five out of five, in the fourth series.
Earlier this morning, Tomar started India's day on a rousing note. The other Indians in the final, veteran Sanjeev Rajput and Niraj Kumar, finished sixth and eighth respectively. After an impressive start following which he led for a while, Tomar slipped in the standings but fought back strongly with a 10.4, 10.5 and 10.3 in the standing elimination stage.
Tomar is an Olympics quota-holder. He won the bronze medal in the 50 metre rifle 3 positions event at the 2019 Asian Shooting Championships to secure a quota place for India at the Olympics. This comes three days after Tomar combined with Deepak Kumar and Pankaj Kumar to win the silver medal in the men's team air rifle event.
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