Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
New Delhi, October 27
Jitu Rai and Pooja Ghatkar failed to clear the qualification hurdle in their respective events in the ISSF World Cup Final on Thursday.
Rai shot a sequence of 94, 96, 96, 97, 95, and 94 to total 572 to be placed ninth in the men’s 10m air pistol event. The top eight make the cut for the final. He shot 95 in the penultimate 10-shot series and eventually dropped to 94 to bow out of the competition at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting ranges. Eventual gold medal winner Matsuda Tomoyuki of Japan, who qualified eighth, aggregated 573 in the qualification, while Vietnamese Cuong Quoc Tran topped it with 586 but fell behind in the final.
In the women’s 10m air rifle, India’s only hope, Pooja Ghatkar, finished ninth with scores of 101.5, 103.9, 102.2, and an improved 104.8 for a total of 412.4. The lowest qualifying score was 412.5 by Norway’s Malin Westerheim.
Ghatkar had opened India’s medal tally in the World Cup Stage 1 earlier this year by winning a bronze medal in the same event.
Andrea Arsovic of Serbia won the gold with a score of 251.3, Romanian Georgeta-Laura Coman clinched the silver with 249.7, while Xinyi Peng of China bagged the bronze by shooting 228.5.
In the men’s skeet event, Italy’s Riccardo Filippelli clinched the gold medal beating Ben Llewellin of Great Britain 4-3 in a shoot-off. Both the shooters were tied at 59 out of the allotted 60 shots in the final. Argentina’s Federico Gil finished third to claim the bronze, finishing with a score of 49. This was Filippelli’s second title at this range, having won the gold at the World Cup Stage 1 in February. Owing to Filippelli’s effort, Italy shot to the top of the medals tally, while China came down to second with one gold, one silver and four bronze in the competition so far. Hosts India, with a solitary gold, are joint seventh with Spain and Japan. Earlier, in the men’s 10m air pistol event, Japanese pistol shooter Matsuda added another gold medal to the one he won at the very same range a few months ago.
Matsuda shot two remarkable series midway through the final, adding a 10.5-10.9 combination in the sixth series to the 10.5-10.7 he scored in the previous one. He also set a new world record, besting Germany’s Christian Reitz at the 2017 European Championship in Maribor.
Alongside Matsuda on the podium was Ukrainian sensation Pavlo Korostylov, competing in his second World Cup Final at the age of 19. He won the silver with 241.1 and a junior world record to boot. Despite a remarkable second half in the match, Korostylov was not able to match Matuda’s pace.
