Saurabh Chaudhary wins first ISSF World Cup medal since 2022 in 10m air pistol final at Lima
India shooter Saurabh Chaudhary on Tuesday won his first medal in an ISSF World Cup since 2022, bagging bronze in 10m air pistol at Lima in Peru.
His previous medal in an individual event – a gold – had come in the season-opening World Cup in Cairo three years ago.
Saurabh, who finished seventh in qualification with a score of 578 to qualify for the eight-man final, started off strongly in the final. He was second after the first series of five shots, trailing only behind China’s Xie Yu by 0.1 points.
However, it was Xie’s compatriot Hu Kai who got to have the last laugh, having won back-to-back World Cup gold medals in the event. There was daylight between his final score of 246.4 and eventual silver medallist Felipe Almeida Wu’s 241.0.
Saurabh could accumulate 219.1. Varun Tomar (198.1), the only other Indian in the final eight, finished just outside the medals.
In the qualification round, India’s Aakash Bhardwaj finished third-highest with 583 points but he was shooting for RPO (Ranking Points Only), hence he couldn’t compete for a medal. Ravinder Singh (574) and Amit Sharma (RPO, 573), the other Indians in the field, finished 12th and 16th, respectively.
Meanwhile, in the women’s 10m air pistol, Manu Bhaker and Suruchi Singh made the final.
More to follow…