Shooting News : Indian trio wins gold in Women's 25M Pistol Team

The Indian Junior Women’s Sports Pistol team comprising Manu Bhaker, Rhythm Sangwan and newly crowned world junior champion in the individual Women’s Sports Pistol Naamya Kapoor, dominated proceedings in the 25M Pistol Team Women Junior competition at the on going ISSF Junior World Championship in Lima, Peru, beating USA 16-4 in the gold medal match. This was Manu’s fourth gold of the competition to go with one bronze, while it was the 14-year old Naamya’s second gold of the championship. In the Junior Women’s 25M Pistol Team competition, the crack Indian trio of Manu, Rhythm and Naamya, faced little competition throughout. They had finished on top of round one qualification with a combined effort of 878, which was six points clear of the second placed French team. Later that day they topped round two as well to ease into the gold medal match with a score of 446. Team USA joined them in the final with a score of 437. In the gold medal match the Indian team took a commanding lead of 10-4 before the beginning of the eighth series of rapid-fire shots, before closing out at 16-4. India also picked up a silver medal in the 25M Rapid Fire Pistol Junior Men competition when Adarsh Singh fell short of USA’s Henry Turner Leverett in the six-man final. In the Junior Men’s 25M Rapid Fire, India had three finalists out of six with the twins Udhayveer and Vijayveer Sidhu making it through along with Adarsh Singh. Udhayveer was the best Indian in qualification with a score of 577 and finished fourth, while Adarsh was fifth with 574 and Vijayveer took the sixth and final qualification spot with 572. Adarsh started the final strong with a perfect 10 out of 10 in the first two series. However, USA’s Henry Turner Leverett turned out to be the most accurate in this match and finished with 32-hits out of 40 to win gold, with Adarsh finishing with 28 to win silver. India is still sit on top of the medal tally, now with nine gold, seven silver and three bronze medals. USA lie second with five gold and a total of 16 medals.