Cairo: India’s Rhythm Sangwan and Anish Bhanwala won the gold medal in the 25m rapid fire pistol mixed team event here Monday. It was the concluding day of the ISSF World Cup here. The Indian duo emerged victorious by a margin of 17-7 over Thailand in the gold medal match. India thus topped the medal tally with four golds, two silver and one bronze medal as the year’s first ISSF World Cup concluded in the Egyptian capital.
On the final day of competitions, India also won a silver medal in the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol event. They went going down to Germany 7-17 in the title decider.
Rhythm and Anish made it through to the gold medal match after finishing second in round two of qualification with a score of 370 out of 400. Thailand’s Paduka Chawisa and Ram Khamhaeng had topped the qualification with 381 to setup the title clash with India.
Esha Singh and Bhavesh Shekhawat, the second Indian pair in the top eight stage, ended in fifth position with 356 points.
Earlier, in the 10-team qualification stage one, Rhythm and Anish had topped the field with a score of 566 out of 600, to Paduka and Ram’s 562. Esha and Bhavesh just made it through to the next round with a score of 539 for an eighth-place finish.
In the final, where two points are awarded to the team with the highest cumulative score after each member has shot a five-shot rapid fire series, Rhythm and Anish needed 12 rounds to cross the coveted 16-point mark required to win.
It was close in the beginning with the scores reading 7-5 in India’s favour after the first six rounds. However, Rhythm and Anish did not lose any of the subsequent six rounds, splitting points in only two of them, to seal gold.
The men’s 25m rapid fire pistol team competition saw India taking on Germany in the gold medal match. The German team had Rio Olympic champion Christian Reitz, besides Geis Oliver and Peter Florian. They proved superior to the Indian trio of Gurpreet Singh, Anish Bhanwala and Bhavesh Shekhawat.
This was India’s second silver of the competition after Esha Singh’s individual silver in the women’s 10m air pistol event.
A total of 22 countries won medals in the tournament. Over 500 athletes from 60 nations had entered to take part in the Cairo World Cup.
