Vijayveer and Tejaswini shoot gold in Rapid Fire Pistol Mixed Team event

1. This is India’s 13^thgold and with eight silver and six bronze medals also in the kitty, India’s tally stands at a whopping 27 medals in Shooting World Cup

25M Rapid Fire Pistol Mixed Team Gold Medal winners Vijayveer Sidhu and Tejaswani.

Rakesh Thapliyal

New Delhi: For host shooters,  Mixed Team events of Rifle, Pistol and Shotgun in  ISSF World Cup 2021  proved very fruitful in terms of winning medals. On Saturday India’s teenage pair of Vijayveer Sidhu and Tejaswini won gold in the 25M Rapid Fire Pistol Mixed Team event. They beat compatriots Gurpreet Singh and Abhidnya Ashok Patil 9-1, in a one-sided final. With that at India win one gold and one silver medal on competition day 9. This was India’s 13^thgold medal of this year’s World Cup here at Dr. Karni Singh Shooting range, with eight silver and six bronze medals also in the kitty, India’s tally with one more day to go stands at a whopping 27 medals.

The hosts also lead the medal tally by quite a distance from the USA, who lie second with three gold, three silver and one bronze medal for a total of seven medals. Italy is third with two gold and two bronze medals, while Denmark is fourth with two gold and one bronze.

India missed a bronze medal in the Trap Mixed Team event. The Indian pair of experienced Sreyashi Singh, who is an MLA in Bihar, and Kynan Chenai, had made it through to the bronze medal match after shooting 141 out of 150 in the qualification round. They stood 4th among 13 teams and faced the Turkish pairing of Yavuz Ilnam and Safiye Sariturk for a shot at a World Cup medal. Sreyashi Singh is the daughter of the former President of the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) Late Digvijay Singh, who also served as Union Minister of State in Indian Govt. Sreyashi’s mother and sister were present at the Range along with few relatives to cheer her. At the start of the event, Sreyashi’s mother recorded the video of her daughter with Gun and the people sitting in the gallery. She watched her hitting and missing the target very seriously. However, the Turkish pair, riding on a brilliant performance by Yavuz, who shot down 23 out of the allotted 25 targets, claimed the bronze, with the final scoreline reading 38-35 in their favour, after 50 shots.

Mixed Team Trap Gold Medal winner Team Italy.

In the second final of the day, the Italian pair of Alessia Iezzi and Valerio Grazini struck gold in the Trap Mixed Team competition, when they defeated Slovakia’s Zuzana Rehak Stefecekova and Adrian Drobny 39-36 in the gold medal match. The Trap Mixed Team is an Olympic discipline.

 The 10^thand final competition day on Sunday has three finals on schedule. The first final is the 25M Rapid Fire Pistol Team Men competition while the World Cup ends with two Shotgun finals, namely the Trap Team Women and Men competitions.

The officials of NRAI announce before every Final that this match will be live on TV etc. A source close to the TV Channel, which is doing a live telecast of this World Cup, told this reporter that on Sunday there will be no live telecast as the channel will telecast another event.