India’s upcoming shooter Sift Kaur Samra came up with an inspired performance to clinch her second senior medal at the international level, beating a tough field to win the 50m rifle 3P bronze on the penultimate day of the ISSF Rifle/Pistol World Cup here on Sunday.
On a day when China continued their domination, with Zhang Qiongyue winning gold in the event, Samra, the reigning national champion, scored a total of 403.9 points in the ranking round to finish third, even as Zhang (414.7 points) and Czech Republic’s Aneta Brabcova (411.3) entered the title round.
In the gold-medal round, Zhang defeated her Czech rival 16-8.
India are currently second on the medals table behind China with one gold, one silver and five bronze medals.
China are leading the tally with seven gold, two silver and an equal number of bronze. On Sunday, Samra added to the bronze medal she had won last year at the World Cup in Changwon, China. All eyes were on world championships silver medallist in air rifle Anjum Moudgil in the preliminary round of the 3P event. But Samra was in a different zone on Sunday, shooting superb series in all three positions to emerge second best at the end of the qualification round with a score of 588.
Samra shot a total of 194 (99, 95) in kneeling position, a perfect 200 in prone (100, 100) and 194 in standing (97, 97), while Anjum slipped to 17th with a score of 583. The third Indian, Manini Kaushik, barley missed the eighth and last qualification spot on the count of ‘inner 10s’. Samra, 21, who had some of the best scores in the trials held in New Delhi ahead of the World Cup, had three awful ‘standing’ rounds in the ranking match, which allowed Zhang and Brabcova to race to the top.
While the Indian did well in kneeling position — 102.2 (51.7, 50.5) — and prone — 103.4 (51.8, 51.6) –, her ‘standing’ scores let her down. She came up with an average 50.4 in the first standing series but thereafter her scores went down further and she managed just 196.3 (50.4, 49.0, 49.2 and 49.7) in that position to end up with bronze.
Anish Bhanwala, who had broken the country’s 12-year jinx of not winning a World Cup medal in rapid-fire pistol by clinching bronze in Cairo last month, came up with a below-par performance here, finishing 11th in qualification with a score of 580 and unable to make the ranking round. The other Indian, Vijayveer Sidhu, narrowly missed out on a spot in the eight-player ranking round, finishing ninth on the basis of a lower ‘inner-10’ total to France’s Clement Bessaguet.
Both Sidhu and Bessaguet had identical scores of 581 but the Indian had an ‘inner-10’ total of 20, while the Frenchman had 29 ‘inner-10s’.
China’s Zhang Jueming won the gold, while Bessaguet and Germany’s Christian Reitz finished second and third respectively.