Harpal Singh Bedi / New Delhi
Apurvi Chandela did India proud as she not only won Gold in the Women’s 10m Air Rifle event, but also created a new world record as the ISSF World Cup opened at Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range (KSSR) finals hall in New Delhi on Saturday..
Jaipur girl Apurvi displayed exception calmness and a solid technique, to shoot a score of 252.9 in the eight-woman 24-shot final.
Ironically, the record she beat belonged to the Silver winning Chinese athlete Ruozhu Zhao, who had shot 252.4 in the Changwon World Cup last year, but could only manage 251.8.
Another Chinese shooter Hong Xu won Bronze with a score of 230.4 to ensure that China secured both Tokyo 2020 quota places on offer in the day’s only scheduled final.
The day however belonged to the affable, soft-spoken Apurvi, who first shot a above decent 60-shot qualification round score of 629.3 to enter the final in fourth place and then after a slowish start in the finals, went from strength to strength shooting high 10s with amazing consistency, to clinch the issue.
The sequence of Apurvi’s last 14 shots are as follows: 10.6, 10.4, 10.1, 10.5, 10.8, 10.6, 10.6, 10.8, 10.6, 10.6,10.8, 10.6, 10.8 and 10.5 to finish off.
It was a level of Shooting rarely seen at the Dr. KSSR as suggested by many regulars. She did not shoot a single shot below 10 in the final and her lowest was a 10.1 in the very first shot.
She was in third position after 10 shots, then moved up to second by the end of 12 shots, and once she went into pole position after the 17th, she never looked back.
This was also her first Gold medal in a top international competition after she had won the Commonwealth Games Gold in Glasgow, back in 2014.
In the day’s other results Sanjeev Rajput of India shot a solid 1173 in the Men’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions elimination round to finish fourth in his relay. Parul Kumar in the second elimination relay shot 1149 to make it through to qualification. However, Chain Singh missed out shooting 1145 to finish 35thin relay 2.
Manu Bhaker, the Youth Olympic Games Champion, topped the first Precision stage of the Women’s 25m Pistol event to find herself on top of the 68-strong field at this stage.
Teammates Chinki Yadav with 288 and Rahi Sarnobat with 287 were lying 22nd and 25th respectively..