India’s Varun Tomar clinched a bronze medal in the 10 m air rifle pistol event to open his country’s medal tally at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup 2023 for the rifle and pistol shooter on Sunday.
The 19-year-old secured the medal by defeating compatriot Sarabjot Singh in a shoot-off to earn his first-ever major senior ISSF World Cup medal. Both were tied for third place with 250.6 points in the ranking round and Slovakia’s Juraj Tuzinsky (254.2 points) and Italy’s Paolo Monna (252.8 points) secured the first and second spots in the ranking round, as per Olympics.com. Tuzinsky defeated Monna by 17-15 to clinch the top position.
In the 64-man qualification round earlier, Tomar had secured 583 points and had come behind Tuzinsky (585 points) in second place. Sarabjot also attained the fifth position to make it to the ranking round featuring eight men.
Sumit Raman, Arjun Singh Cheema, and Tinjit Dhanota were three other Indians competing in the 10 m air pistol event but could not make it to the top eight as Raman finished at 45th position with 570 points, Cheema (568 points, 49th position), Dhanota (565 points, 52nd position).\
Later that day, Esha Singh, a 2021 ISSF Junior World Championships silver medalist claimed second position in the women’s 10 m air pistol qualification round with a total of 577 points. Greece’s Anna Korakaki, a gold medalist at Rio 2016 Olympics in women’s 25 m pistol, topped the qualification round with 585 points. Manu Bhaker came in eighth and narrowly made it to the ranking round with Divya Thadigol Subbaraju, who finished in third position. With a score of 198.6 points, Bhaker came fifth in the ranking round and failed to bag a medal and Divya also finished in seventh position with a score of 146.7 points.
Esha did not compete in the ranking round as she was competing for ranking points only.
Yashaswini Singh Deswal, competing under ranking points only (RPO), finished the qualification round with a score of 571 points and secured the 13th position. Rhythm Sangwan finished in 23rd position with a score of 568 points and failed to make it to the rankings round. Hungary’s Veronika Major triumphed over Zorana Arunovic of Serbia 16-6 to claim the gold medal in women’s 10m air pistol. The World Cup will conclude on 23 February.