Meerut’s Shapath shoots bronze in team event
LUCKNOW: A young shooter from Meerut, Shapath Bharadwaj, won a bronze medal in the team event at the ISSF World Cup in Lima, Peru. Shapath and his teammates Kaynan Chenai and Manavditya Singh Rathore collectively shot a score of 205 and beat the Brazil team in a shoot- off after both teams finished with an equal score of five in the medal match. Shapath took the winning shot to get a bronze medal for the country.
Shapath, 20, started shooting in 2013 at the age of just 13 after seeing his elder brother Shreya Bhardwaj shooting in the valley of Dehradun in Uttarakhand. He was spotted by ace double trap shooter Ronjan Sondhi, who won two silver medals at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and a gold medal at the 2010 Asian Games.
Shapath is a junior, but has been selected for India’s senior team for trap event after trials in Delhi in February. Sixty-two athletes from 19 countries participated in the competition.
Teams from Spain, USA, India, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Guatemala, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Mexico and Colombia challenged each other for medals.
India finished third. USA settled for gold and Spain for silver medal. Despite being a UPite, Shapath represents Uttarakhand as he was with his family there when he started shooting. The boy has so far won eight international medals, including a bronze medal in Junior World Cup in Italy and gold medal in the World Championship in Moscow.
He is the national junior champion in trap event. He won a gold medal at the 64th National Shooting Championship at Patiala, Punjab in December last year. It was followed by his success at the selection trials match in which he finished fourth among seniors and second among juniors.
Supported by OGQ, Shapath has been part of the Sports Authority of India’s Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS). He made his debut in an international competition in ISSF World Cup in Germany at the age of 14 years. He won twin gold medals at the Grand Prix in Porpetto, Italy and made a new national record by scoring 139/150 in double trap.
Before Shapath’s win at Peru, Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami had wished him success through a tweet.