India won their first gold medal at the ISSF World Cup in New Delhi after pistol shooter Jitu Rai clinched the top position in the 50m men’s air pistol event on Wendesday. This was his second medal in two days after he won the bronze medal in the 10m pistol event on Tuesday.
The silver medal also went to India as Amanpreet Singh took the second position after shooting a total of 226.9. This was his first World Cup final appearance.
The bronze medal went to Iran’s Vahid Golkhandan who shot a total score of 208 points. This was his first World Cup medal in international competition.
Earlier in the qualification round, Amanpreet had led the charts with 561 points while Jitu was second with 559 points. They had finished first and second respectively in that round.
Jitu has now won nine World Cup medals including two this year and this last year. He had also qualified for the Rio Olympics but finished eighth in the finals.
Last year, Jitu won two World Cup medals and one in the World Cup Final, a event where the 10 best shooters around the world take part. Amanpreet was in his maiden final at a World Cup.
India’s medal tally at this ISSF World Cup in New Delhi stands at five with Pooja Ghatkar winning bronze medal on first medal for India. Ankur Mittal added a silver in the douple trap event.
For the second time in two days, Jitu was on the brink of elimination but the ace shooter kept his cool and rose to the top with one shot remaining in the competition.
At the first two-shot elimination, Jitu shot 8.2 and 9.5 and slipped to the sixth position in the eight-man final. In next two-shot elimination, he had another poor run and managed on only 8.6 and 9.2 to remain at sixth, the last position since Atallah Alanazi (7th) and Yoshinobu Sonoda had been eliminated.
But out of the next eight shots, Jitu shot six shot of 10 points or more and reached the top, overtaking Amanpreet with two shots remaining.
Amanpreert lost his cool in the final eight rounds and could only shoot one shot of 9.8 and all others below nine to lose out on gold medal.
