Zoravar fires two clean rounds to rise to second on the leaderboard  

Khel Today Bureau

New Delhi: Indian trap shooter Zoravar Singh Sandhu, fired two perfect rounds of 25 each, to rise to second on the men’s trap shooting qualification leaderboard and with one final round of 25 targets coming up on Friday (Oct 17), the seasoned pro, an international shooter for 30 years now, is on the cusp of history. Shooting at the Malakasa Shooting Range in Athens, Greece, where the International Shooting Sports Federation (ISSF) World Championship Shotgun 2025 is currently underway, Zoravar’s four-round (24,25,25,25) tally of 99, sees him sandwiched between the two Glasnovic brothers from Croatia, Anton and Josip. The former, the elder of the two and a former world championship silver medalist, leads the standings, having not yet missed a target while the latter, a former Olympic champion, is on the same score as Zoravar, but behind on countback.

In a top field comprising all the Paris Olympic medalists and several former Olympic and World champions, Zoravar, held his own, to execute two perfect rounds in his unique quick style, which has now made him favourite to make the top-six finals cut.

The Indian missed one target in his first round on Wednesday and since then has had three perfect rounds to put himself in a favourable position. At one stage, the Indian troika of Zoravar, Bhowneesh Mendiratta and Vivaan Kapoor, had together hit 127 targets without a miss, before Bhowneesh broke that sequence.

Both Vivaan (23,25,22,24) and Bhowneesh (22,25,25,22) finished the day on identical scores of 94 for 38th and 40th positions provisionally and have only a mathematical chance of going through.

Other scores and positions on the day:

Trap Women-

Neeru- 44th, 86 (23,19,23,21)

Aashima Ahlawat- 48th, 84 (20,19,22,23)

Kirti Gupta- 58th, 82 (20,22,21,19)

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Watch all the finals of ISSF World Championship Shotgun 2025 live on the ISSF YouTube channel.