Silver lining for Gurpreet in centre fire pistol; India end 3rd

Cairo: Olympian Gurpreet Singh came agonisingly close to becoming the world champion in men’s 25m Centre Fire Pistol event but eventually got a silver after losing on inner 10s to Ukraine’s Pavlo Korostylov at the Olympic Shooting Range here.

This was Gurpreet’s second individual medal in the World Championships, the first also being a silver won back in 2018 at Changwon in the 25m Standard Pistol event. Yann Pierre Louis Fridrici of France won the bronze here.

India thus ended their World Championship campaign in third place with a total of 13 medals, including three gold, six silver and four bronze behind China. The Chinese team won 12 gold, seven silver and two bronze.

South Korea secured seven gold, three silver and four bronze medals to end second in the overall standings.

Gurpreet shot a total of 584-18x over two days of competition in the precision and rapid stages, while Korostylov shot 29 inner 10s and a perfect score of 100 in the final rapid round to edge away with the gold medal.

The Indian shooter, who was placed ninth after the precision stage with a score of 288-8x (95,97,96), bounced back on the second day to shoot a brilliant score of 296-10x (98,99,99) in the rapid stage to clinch the silver medal.

The Ukrainian, who was leading after the precision stage with a score of 291-14x, shot 293-15x in the rapid stage to level Gurpreet’s score and win the gold on inner 10s.

Harpreet Singh, who was in contention for a medal after the precision stage with a score of 291-10x that placed him second, could only manage 286-6x in the rapid stage which saw him eventually finish in ninth place.

The other Indian shooter in fray, Sahil Choudhary, finished 28th with a total score of 561-14x (Precision – 272-4x, Rapid – 289 – 10x).

Samrat Rana (10m Air Pistol), Ravinder Singh (50m Standard Pistol and 10m Air Pistol Team) won the gold medals.

Esha (25m Sports Pistol), Elavenil Valarivan (10m Air Rifle), Varun Tomar (10m Air Pistol and 10m Women’s Air Rifle Team) won bronze

medals for India.