Para Shooting World Cup: Mona-Aadithya pair clinches rifle mixed team silver

India’s Mona Agarwal clinched her second medal in the ongoing Para Shooting World Cup, bagging a silver partnering Aadithya Giri in the Mixed Team Air Rifle Standing (SH1) event here on Sunday.

On a day when the hosts won two silver and two bronze medals, Tokyo Paralympic gold medallist Manish Narwal and his partner Rubina Francis lost to China’s Li Min and Yang Chao 12-16 in the Mixed Team 10m Air Pistol (SH1) gold-medal match.

India also won a bronze medal in the same event with Bhakti Sharma and Rudransh Khandelwal defeating the Cuban pair of Yenigladys Suarez and Loriga Rodriguez 16-8.

The 37-year-old Mona from Japiur, who had clinched an individual Women’s 10m Air Rifle (SH1) gold and a Paris Paralympic berth on Saturday, paired with Giri but went down in the final to the Chinese pair of Zhong Yixin and Dong Chao 16-4 to settle for silver.

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Another Indian pair in the bronze-medal match in the same event, Tokyo Paralympics gold medallist Avani Lekhara and Mahavir Swaroop, went down by the same margin to the Ukrainian duo of Iryna Shchetnik and Andrii Doroshenko.

In the qualification, Mona shot 315.4 while Giri scored 307.5 as the pair aggregated 622.9 to set up a gold-medal showdown with the Chinese, who aggregated 627.9 to top the round.

The other Indian pair of Avani (310.9) and Swaroop (308.6) aggregated 619.5 to be placed fourth in qualification behind Ukraine, whose team accumulated 622.3.

Only four teams go into the medal round in mixed team events with the top-two sides fighting for gold and the bottom two competing for the bronze.

In the Mixed Team 10m Air Rifle Standing (SH2) event, India’s Pawani Banoth and Satya Janardhana Rayana earned a bronze medal beating the New Zealand duo of Natalie Brunzel and Kiranjit Singh in a tough contest 17-15.

The gold was won by Brazil’s Jessica Daiane Michalack and Bruno Stov Kiefer who defeated the United States team of Madison Champion and Ben Hays 16-6.

The pair of Manish Narwal and Rubina Francis was the favourite for the gold medal in the Mixed Team 10m Air Pistol (SH1) event after topping the preliminary round by equalling the Qualification World Record (QWR) with a score of 570. Narwal shot 284, while Rubina scored 286.

The Chinese pair of Li Min and Yang Chao were placed second with an aggregate of 562. But they turned the tables on the Indians in the finals to deny them gold.