Shooting World Cup: India end Changwon campaign with most medals
The Hindu
India had won all five ISSF World Cup stages in 2019, one in the curtailed 2021 season and yet again this year in the first stage in Cairo
India finished yet another ISSF Shooting World Cup campaign by topping the medal tally with a haul of 15 medals, including five gold, six silver and four bronze on July 20.
On the final day of competitions, the Indian trio of Anish Bhanwala, Vijayveer Sidhu and Sameer won the silver in the men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol team event.
The Indians were all set to top the podium and, at one point, were leading 10-2 against the quality Czech side of Martin Podhrasky, Tomas Tehan, and Matej Rampula.
Also read: Anjum Moudgil wins rifle 3-position bronze
But the Indians lost their nerve as they went down 15-17 to settle for second place.
In the skeet mixed team event, the Indian pair of Mairaj Ahmad Khan and Mufaddal Deesawala finished ninth out of 17 teams with a score of 138 out of 150.
India had won all five ISSF World Cup stages in 2019, one in the curtailed 2021 season and yet again this year in the first stage in Cairo.
He has worn India’s blues, albeit in an Under-19 World Cup, with K.L. Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Harshal Patel and Jaydev Unadkat as his teammates. He has proudly adorned the Lion’s Crest — the famed Mumbai cricket logo — in all three formats. He has played with Yuvraj Singh, against Virat Kohli and Rahul Dravid and has the likes of Rahul and Joe Root in his illustrious list of dismissals. He is also a software developer for an IT giant, based in California. Virtually every middle-class Indian over the last three decades at some stage dreams of being either a cricketer or an IT professional. Saurabh Netravalkar has been combining two dreams, even after relocating to USA to pursue academics at the prestigious Cornell University in 2015.
Unlike most of the Olympic-bound athletes, who opt to train abroad before the big event, boxer Amit Panghal prefers training in home conditions prior to Paris 2024. A former World championships silver medallist and a World No. 1, Panghal won the 51kg quota place in the only chance he got. He wants to follow his own plans to script success in Paris.
The other men’s semifinal Friday is Norway’s Casper Ruud, twice the runner-up in Paris — to Rafael Nadal in 2022 and to Novak Djokovic in 2023 — against Germany’s Alexander Zverev, a finalist at the 2020 U.S. Open, an Olympic gold medalist and into the final four at Roland Garros for the fourth consecutive year.