WC Finals
Bhaker, Elavenil and Panwar shoot gold in best ever show for India on a single day at season-ending event
Yashaswini Singh Deswal, who also qualified for the final, finished sixth.
“She has been learning to deal with different situations and shoot with a free mind. She is still a teenager,” says Bhaker’s father Ram Kishan Bhaker.
“The fact she was able to put back the weapon malfunction at Munich so quickly, come back and win an Olympic quota the next day shows how fast she is maturing.”
Bhaker had a disappointing run at the Jakarta Asian Games too, after the high at Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. But she has not allowed the bad patches take a turn for the worse.
Bhaker, herself, admitted that she is getting used to disapp o i nt ments. “I g e t o v e r i t quickly now. Before, I could not accept things very easily. Now I am much better,” Bhaker had said after the Munich World Cup.
“The day my weapon malfunctioned, I was feeling very bad. But next day it was a fresh start. Everything was to start from the beginning. I told myself I know I shot well (in 25m pistol), everyone will know t hat i t wasn’t my fault. I gave my best. It’s also about luck on that day,” she added.
Winning a gold medal in her first appearance in World Cup Finals will go a long way in giving her confidence ahead of next year’s Tokyo Olympics.
ELAVENIL, PANWAR HIT BULLSEYE
Rifle shooters Elavenil Valarivan and Divyansh Panwar also won gold on a day of triple high for India. Elavenil, who had won gold in Rio World Cup, carried on her good streak and won the women’s 10m air rifle with a score of 250.8 beating Taiwan’s Lin Ying-shin (250.7). Romania’s Laura-georgeta Coman came third with 229. Mehuli Ghosh also qualified for the final but finished sixth.
Panwar, 17, won gold in men’s 10m air rifle with a score of 250.1. Hungary’s Istvan Peni (250) and Slovakia’s Patrik Jany (228.4) f i ni s hed s e c o nd a nd t hi r d respectively.
Panwar, who has already won a 2020 Tokyo Olympics quota with a silver in Beijing World Cup, shot 627.1 in the qualification.
In men’s 10m air pistol event, Abhishek Verma and Saurabh Chaudhary qualified for the final but could not win a medal.