Manu Bhaker & Saurabh Chaudhary win India’s second gold at ISSF World Cup

India opened its medal account with a gold each in the 10m Air Rifle Mixed and 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team events on the third day of competitions at the ISSF Shooting World Cup here Thursday. Young shooters Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary took the top spot in the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team event after Anjum Moudgil and Divyansh Singh Panwar opened the country’s gold account in the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team event.

Bhaker and Chaudhary outshot Jiang Ranxin and Pang Wei of China 16-6 in the final, which was held in the new format wherein top two teams battled for the gold medal.

The Indian pair, who had qualified for the final at the fifth spot with 482 points, won the first six series and dominated the final before the Chinese combination managed to open their account.

It was Bhaker and and Chaudhary’s second World Cup gold in the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team event. The pair had won their first yellow metal together at the ISSF World Cup held in February in New Delhi.

Bhaker had failed to qualify for the women’s 10m Air Pistol individual event final on Wednesday. The other Indian pair in the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team event, Heena Sidhu and Rizvi Shahzar failed to enter the final after finishing the qualification round at the 12 spot with 479 points.

Earlier in the day, Moudgil and Panwar had to fight tooth and nail to beat another Chinese pair of Liu Ruxuan and Yang Haoran 17-15 in the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team final.

Moudgil and Panwar, who qualified for the final at the sixth position with a score of 522.7 points, were trailing 11-13 at one stage before they bounced back in style to emerge winners.

Another Indian pair in the fray, Apurvi Chandela and Deepak Kumar had finished a spot ahead of Moudgil and Panwar in the qualification round with 522.8 points, but couldn’t hold on to their nerves and eventually finished sixth in the final.