World-class Drama in New Delhi Shooting World Cup, Hungary concedes final against India

Sports Pistol women team of Rahi, Manu and Chinki strike gold again 

India Team Gold Medal 25M Pistol Team Women Chinki Yadav, Manu Bhaker, Rahi Sarnobat.

Rakesh Thapliyal 

New Delhi: On Thursday morning around 11 a handful of journalists and few members of NRAI’s workforce were sitting in the Final Range of Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range. They were anxious to watch the Indian men’s team fight for a gold medal match against Hungary in the 50M 3position Rifle team men event, but what surprised them is shooters were missing, they did not report at the firing point. Ultimately This match did not take place and no official announcement was made. Everybody was asking what happened? People wanted to know why this gold medal match did not take place? but nobody wants to answer or doesn’t want to be part of the controversy. Journalists were running from pillar to post to find out what exactly has happened. 

After few hours this world-class drama of the ISSF World Cup was unfolded and a story of infighting in the Hungary team, especially between two world-beaters Istvan Peni and Peter Sidi, erupted and it is learned that, because of this, they have decided to concede the gold medal match against India. ISSF has decided not to give walkover and declare India winners, instead they invited the USA team, who were placed third in qualifications, to play the final on Friday. This was an extraordinary situation but the point is why this decision of rescheduling the final between India and the USA, was not properly and officially communicated? The host NRAI and ISSF need to answer this, but will they answer? Well nobody knows!

This was highly unprofessional on the part of host National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) that their office did not bother to inform the media about the truth of the situation. Even the media release of NRAI had no mention of this, not even a line that final of 50M 3Position Rifle team men event is postponed and will be played on Friday. 

 Coming to the medal front,  India’s Sports Pistol aces Rahi Sarnobat, Manu Bhaker and Chinki Yadav, all three Tokyo Olympics quota winners, struck gold yet again in the Women’s 25M Pistol Team event, on competition day seven of the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun World Cup stage, presently underway at New Delhi’s Dr. Karni Singh Shooting range. The troika, which led an Indian 1-2-3 in the individual competition on Wednesday, was

India Team Gold Medal 25M Pistol Team Women Manu Bhaker, Rahi Sarnobat and Chinki Yadav.

at it again, when they downed Poland 17-7 in the Team gold medal match on Thursday. Former international Shooter and Vice President of NRAI Sushma Singh gave away the medals to the shooters.

 Asian Games champion Rahi Sarnobat was particularly impressive as she shot a series of five out five hits (seven) out of the 12 five-shot series that were required to win the match. The first to 16 points wins the match. Two points are awarded to the team winning one five-shot series which each of the three-team members has to shoot. Both teams get one point in case of a tied series.

This was India’s 10thgold of this world cup and they continue to lead the table with 21 medals, including six silver and five bronze medals.

In the 50M Rifle 3 Positions Team Women, India went down to Poland 43-47 in a close encounter to settle for silver. The team had to go through two rounds of qualification before reaching the gold medal match. In the first round where every team member had to shoot 15-shots in each of the three Kneeling, Prone and Standing positions, India shot a total of 1304 out 1350 to finish fourth out of eight teams. 

In the second qualification round, each team member shot 10-shots in each position, and here India finished with a combined 864, which was second to Poland who shot 872. Hungary was third with 857 and Indonesia was fourth with 856. This propelled India to the gold medal match with Poland as Hungary squared up with Indonesia for the bronze medal match.