The Indian team lost the gold in a thriller in the rapid fire pistol team event, but topped the medals table in the shooting World Cup that concluded in Changwon, Korea, on Wednesday.
Anish Bhanwala, Sameer and Vijayveer Sidhu had topped the second stage to make the gold contest, and led 10-2 before the Czech Republic turned it around to make it a lively contest.
At 15-15, the Czech Republic had 11 hits out of 15 to pip India which had shot 10, with Anish’s perfect five proving inadequate.
Czech team’s hero
Tomas Tehan was the hero for the Czech team as he came up with five hits while Martin Podhrasky and Matej Rampula had three hits each to clinch the gold for the team.
In the mixed skeet event, Mairaj Ahmad Khan and Muffaddal Deesawala shot 138 and missed the qualification for the medal contest by two points. Deesawala’s 18 in the second of the three rounds cost the team a chance to fight for a medal.
India was on top of the table among 21 countries that won medals, with five gold, six silver and four bronze medals.
Host Korea was second with four gold, five silver and three bronze.
Czech Repulic (4), China (3), Serbia (3), Italy (2), Germany (2), Singapore (2), Australia, France, Britain, Slovakia and Japan were the other teams to take their share from an overall collection of 30 gold medals.
The results: 25m rapid fire pistol team men: 1. Czech Republic (Martin Podhrasky, Tomas Tehan, Matej Rampula) 17 (572) 863; 2. India (Anish Bhanwala, Sameer, Vijayveer Sidhu) 15 (578) 966; 3. Korea 17 (558) 872; 4. Japan 1 (553) 840.
