Ganemat wins historic Bronze in Skeet ‘Golden Girl’ Yashaswini ‘shoot’ Gold number two

A beaming Ganemat Sekhon after winning a historic Skeet Bronze at Dr. Karni Singh Shooting range on Sunday.

India goes on top of medal tally on Day-3 at New Delhi Shooting World Cup

Rakesh Thapliyal

New Delhi: Indian domination in the ISSF World Cup 2021 has become ‘Talk of the Town’. Whether it’s Indoor Ranges or outdoor Range medals are shining bright around the necks of the host nation’s Men and Women shooters. On Sunday, the morning session was dominated by India’s Pistol and Rifle shooters as they won two Gold and a silver medal. On a sunny afternoon the first day of Shotgun events, a slim girl used the heavy Gun like a toy, shot like a sharpshooter, and created history by winning a Bronze medal in the Skeet event. Ganemat Sekhon became the first Indian woman to win an ISSF World Cup medal in Women’s Skeet. She won bronze, finishing with a score of 40 in the final. Earlier, she had also shot a career-best score of 117 out of 125 in qualifying, to make it to the six-women final. 

Ganemat in fact is also the only Indian woman to win a medal in Women’s Skeet at the Junior ISSF World Cup. Ganemat’s happiness of becoming the only woman shooter who has won a medal each in the Junior and Senior ISSF World Cup was amazing. Everyone, including NRAI president Raninder Singh, present at the Shotgun Range was full of joy as they also became a part of history.

Women’s 10M Air Pistol Team with their Gold medal L-R: Yashaswini Deswal, Shri Nivetha, Manu Bhaker.

‘Golden Girl’ Yashaswini Deswal who always celebrates her Gold medal-winning performance by chanting ‘BHARAT MATA KI JAI’ standing on the podium, today also did the same when she won her second Gold in two days. Her proud father DG ITBP, S S Deswal watched from the stands to his daughter help her team winning the Women’s 10M Air Pistol team event Gold. On Saturday Yashaswini had won Individual Gold in the 10M Air Pistol event. Yashaswini’s Father accompanied her from Range to the door of the team bus, hugged her, and walked down, with feelings of pride, towards his car near the main gate.

Hosts India climbed on top of the medals tally of the ongoing International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun stage at New Delhi’s Dr. Karni Singh Shooting range, adding four more medals to their kitty, including two Gold and a historic Bronze in Women’s Skeet. They now have three medals of every color, for a total of nine medals. The USA is second with the same number of Golds as India, but with only two more Silvers at this stage, having a tally of five medals.

The two Golds that India won on Sunday came in the Men’s and Women’s 10M Air Pistol team events. The Women went first when the trio of Manu Bhaker, Yashaswini Deswal, and Shri Nivetha beat Poland convincingly by a margin of 16-8 in the final.

 In this new format, the three Shooters of each team shoot a single shot and the team with the higher combined tally gets two points. If there is a tie, then the teams get one point each. The first team to 16 points or more, wins the match.

Men’s 10M Air Pistol Team with their Gold medals L-R: Abhishek Verma, Saurabh Chaudhary, Shahzar. Rizvi

India’s second gold of the day came when Saurabh Chaudhary, Abhishek Verma, and Shahzar Rizvi, got the better of Vietnam 17-11, in the Men’s 10M Air Pistol final. Amber Hill of Great Britain won Gold with a finals score of 51. She had to win it in a Shoot-off though, after tying with Kazakhstan’s Silver winner Zoya Kravchenko on the same score after 60-shots.

Men’s 10M Air Rifle Team with their Silver medals L-R: Parul Kumar, Aishwary Tomar, Deepak Kumar.

India’s fourth medal of the day came in the Men’s 10M Air Rifle where they were up against the USA in the Gold medal match. This was the most exciting of the finals on the day as the hosts at one stage were up 8-2, but the Americans fought back brilliantly and tied the match at 14-14. In the deciding single-shot series, they piped India to win 16-14.

The other nation to win big on the day was Denmark, as they won both the Women’s 10M Air Rifle team event as well as the Men’s Skeet gold for a tally of three Golds thus far.

In the Women’s 10M Air Rifle team, they beat USA 16-8. In the Men’s Skeet, Jesper Hensen shot 58 out of 60 in the final to strike Gold. Saif Bin Futais of UAE won Silver, while Nasser Al-Attiya won Bronze.