The Indian women’s air rifle team of Shreya Agrawal, Elavenil Valarivan and Ramita outplayed Denmark 17-5 for gold in the shooting World Cup in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Tuesday.
The Indian team started well by topping qualification in the first stage. It wavered a bit in the second stage, to be 0.6 point behind Denmark, but ensured its berth in the gold match.
The first medal helped India climb to the joint fifth spot in the medals table with Czech Republic, Finland, Greece and Iran, behind the leaders Korea, Serbia, Poland and France.
The men’s air rifle team of Rudrankksh Patil, Dhanush Srikanth and Paarth Makhija, started well, but lost its way and eventually got beaten in the bronze medal match by Croatia 16-10.
In a packed calendar for the season, the Indian team had planned to pace itself judiciously and had opted to field only 12 rifle shooters in the current World Cup.
The results: Air rifle: Men: 1. Korea 16 (627.3) 936.3; 2. Australia 8 (626.6) 933.4; 3. Croatia (Josip Sikavica, Miran Maricic, Andrija Mikuljan) 16 (624.2) 940.0; 4. India (Rudrankksh Patil, Dhanush Srikanth, Paarth Makhija) 10 (624.9) 940.4.
Women: 1. India (Shreya Agrawal, Elavenil Valarivan, Ramita) 17 (628.6) 944.4; 2. Denmark (Anna Nielsen, Emma Koch, Rikke Ibsen) 5 (629.2) 942.8; 3. Poland 16 (626.6) 944.1; 4. Korea 10 (626.5) 944.2.
