New Delhi: Indian shooters did the country proud as Sangram Dahiya won silver in the men’s doubles trap while Amanpreet Singh clinched bronze in the men’s 50m pistol event in his maiden appearance in the ISSF World Cup Final here Friday.
However, gold medallist on the opening day, fancied Jitu Rai fizzled out to finish a poor seventh place finish.
World Cup silver medallist Amanpreet shot 202.2 points to finish third on the podium at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Ranges here. Rai could manage only 123.2 to finish last in the seven-man final. Earlier, both cleared the qualification hurdle without much fuss.
Serbia’s Damir Mikec won the gold medal with 229.3 points, while Ukrainian Oleh Omelchuk got silver after scoring 228.0 in a low-scoring but thrilling final.
“Considering that this is a World Cup Final with the best shooters in fray, you can call this as my finest performance. I’m happy but score-wise it’s not great, so I need to improve on that,” a pleased Amanpreet said after the prize distribution ceremony.
The shooter, though, managed to pull off good scores when he really needed them. As luck would have it, an 8.1 in the 22nd shot for the bronze medal proved good enough for Amanpreet. In total, he shot 10 10s in qualification and hit the bull’s eye five times in the final.
Amanpreet’s was India’s first individual medal in the ongoing edition of the prestigious tournament and Sangram made it a memorable day later with a silver.
Sangram shot 76 out of 80 targets, three behind gold medallist Hu Binyuan (79). Italy’s Gasparani Davi (56) took the bronze.
This incidentally was Sangram’s first-ever medal at the senior level, having won a gold at the Junior Asian Shooting Championships way back in 2009.
“It could have been better,” Sangram said. “I missed a couple of shots after crossing the 50-point mark. At that point of time I was close to the Chinese shooter. But once the gap widened a bit, there was no chance of catching him.”
Press trust of India