India's teenage pair of Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary clinched a gold in the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team of the ISSF World Cup in Delhi on Wednesday, 27 February.
The Indian duo of 16-year-old Saurabh and 17-year-old Manu finished first with a total of 483.4, over 5 points ahead of the Chinese pair of Ranxin Jiang and Bowen Zhang, who finished in second place with 477.7.
Manu and Saurabh had earlier equalled the world record score in the qualification round, entering the final in first place with 778 points. The other Indian pair in the event – Heena Sindhu and Abhishek Verma – had failed to qualify after finishing ninth with 770 points.
After the first 10, 20 and 30 shots, Manu and Saurabh were placed second, trailing behind Korea 2 – one of the two teams participating from the Republic of Korea.
Ukraine, who got off to a flyer in the event, were just behind India after the first two rounds. However, they suffered a major setback in the third round of shooting, were placed last in the five-team event after 30 shots, and eventually became the first team to be eliminated.
Once Korea 1 also found themselves out of the competition, India was assured of a medal.
Manu and Saurabh raced to a lead in the event, leaving Korea 1 and China fighting for a place in the final two. With scores level at 418.8, the two teams headed into a thrilling shootout, which ended in Korea 1 pair of Minjung Kim and Daehun Park (418.8) missing out by just 0.1 point and settling for the bronze.
In the end, India’s teenage stars made sure that the shootout between the last two teams wasn’t much of a competition, as they clinched the gold with 5.8 point difference.
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The Indian shooters in 10m air rifle mixed team event – Ravi Kumar and Anjum Moudgil and Apurvi Chandela and Deepak Kumar – finished seventh and 25th respectively.
India jointly topped the standings with Hungary with three gold medals, but managed to secure only one Olympic quota of the 14 that were being offered at the tournament.
And that one quota place was won by the 16-year-old Saurabh Chaudhary, who clinched a gold in the 10m Air Pistol event with a world record score of 245 in his maiden senior World Cup appearance.
Manu, however, had finished fifth in the women’s 25 metre Rapid Fire Pistol final on Sunday, 24 February and along with her senior Heena had failed to qualify for the final of the 10m Air Pistol event.
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