Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Guadalajara, March 10
Chandigarh shooter Anjum Moudgil clinched the silver medal in the women’s 50m rifle 3 positions event at the ISSF World Cup in Guadalajara, Mexico.
It was Anjum’s first World Cup medal as she battled windy conditions to shoot 454.2 in the 45-shot final to finish behind former junior world champion China’s Ruijiao Pei (455.4). Another Chinese, Ting Sun, claimed the bronze, finishing with a score of 442.2.
This was India’s eighth medal in the competition and the first silver after having won three gold and four bronze medals already for their best ISSF World Cup performance.
India thus remained on top of the medals tally with eight medals, while China is in second with two gold, two silver and one bronze.
Anjum remained in the medal contention from the beginning of the final and at the end of the 15-shot kneeling position stood third behind Ruijiao and Slovakia’s Ziva Dvorsak.
She pulled into the lead after the second 5-shot prone position series, which followed the kneeling position and was 0.9 points clear of German world No. 1 Jolyn Beer at the end of it.
After the 15-shot prone series, Anjum was still in the lead. However, after the 10th shot of the last standing series when the first two finalists out of the eight were eliminated, Anjum had gone down to the fourth position.
A brilliant 10.8 in the 41st shot took her up to second and she maintained that position finishing with the scores of 10.2, 10.1, 9.5 and 10.2 to secure the first World Cup medal of her career.
Earlier in the qualification, Anjum rode on the back of a solid prone round of 399 out of 400 to log a combined score of 1170 and sail through to the eight-woman final in the second place behind Pei, who shot a qualification world record score of 1178. N Gaayathri was well in contention for a finals place after the kneeling and prone rounds but a 371 out of 400 in the standing round meant that she had to be content with the 15th place, totalling 1153.
Former prone world champion Tejaswini Sawant also shot the same score but finished a spot behind Gaayathri because of three fewer inner 10s.
Heartbreak for Anish
In the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol, it was heartbreak for 15-year old Anish Bhanwala, who stood third after the first precision round with a solid 294 and a real chance to make it amongst the top six finalists.
The Karnal shooter had looked comfortable in the second rapid fire round yesterday — beginning with a solid 99 and following it up with a 97 but scores of 7, 9, 10, 8, 8 in the final series of five shots pulled him down to the seventh place.
Anish ended with 578, the same score as sixth place qualifier Zhaonan Hao of China, but with one lesser 10 than the Chinese. Neeraj Kumar also had a similar last series to finish with 569 and in the 13th place.
