SAURABH IS HOT SHOT
16-year-old shoots down his own record at Worlds
Changwon (South
Korea), Sept. 6: Saurabh Chaudhary claimed a record-shattering gold in the junior 10m air pistol event but Abhishek Verma missed out on an Olympic quota after finishing eighth in the senior competition of the ISSF World Championship here on Thursday.
While they failed to impress individually, the senior shooters, including Verma, won silver in the 10m air pistol event.
Asian Games bronze medallist Verma had shot 583 in the qualification.
Arjun Singh Cheema settled for a bronze in Chaudhary’s event and the Indian team took the silver, propelled by the 16year-old Asian Games gold medallist’s phenomenal individual performance.
India also picked up a silver medal in the junior men’s trap team competition with Aman Ali Elahi, Vivaan Kapoor and Manavaditya Singh Rathore shooting a combined score of 348 to finish second behind Australia.
In the senior competition, Verma, Om Prakash Mitharwal, who claimed the 50m pistol gold, and Shahzar Rizvi pocketed the team silver with a combined score of 1738 in men’s 10m air pistol.
The 16-year-old Chaudhary, who won the Asiad gold last month, qualified third with a score of 581 before shooting down his own world record with a score of 245.5 in the final. Singh managed 218 once the field was pruned to eight following the qualifying round.
Chaudhary first set a world record in the 10m air pistol event at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) Junior World Cup in June. Korean Hojin Lim finished second with a final score of 243.1 for the silver medal.
The Indian team of Chaudhary, Singh and Anmol, who could not make the individual final, claimed the silver with a combined score of 1730.
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