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Rudrankksh Patil and Arya Borse went down 11-17 to the Norwegian pair of Jon-Hermann Hegg and Jeanette Hegg Duestad in the gold medal match.
Rudrankksh Patil and Arya Borse at ISSF World Cup (X)
The pair of Rudrankksh Patil and Arya Borse won the 10m air rifle mixed team silver, while Paris Olympian Arjun Babuta also clinched the second spot in the men’s 10m air rifle event at the ISSF World Cup in Lima, Peru.
The duo of Rudrankksh and Arya went down 11-17 to the Norwegian pair of Jon-Hermann Hegg and Jeanette Hegg Duestad in the gold-medal match.
These were India’s second and third silver medals in the Lima World Cup to go with two gold and a bronze.
Earlier, Rudrankksh and Arya had shot a combined 632.5 to make it to the gold-medal match, finishing behind the table-topping Norwegian pair by 0.1 point.
They could not overturn that supremacy in the final.
The other Indian pair of Babuta and Narmada Nithin shot 630.0 to finish seventh in the 24-team competition.
Indian trap shooters failed to impress on the day.
Pragati Dubey finished best in the women’s trap with a 113, giving her the seventh place. The top-six make the final. Bhavya Tripathi was further down in 12th with 110 while Neeru’s 105 gave her the 18th spot.
In men’s trap, Prithviraj Tondaiman and Zoravar Sandhu finished with poor qualifying scores of 117 and 116 respectively.
In women’s 25m pistol, Manu Bhaker shot 291 (96,99,96) to lie second, while Esha Singh was sixth with a score of 289 after the first duelling round. Simranpreet Kaur Brar shot 286 to be in ninth spot.
The three will come back on Monday, the last day of competition, for the second rapid-fire round and then hopefully the final.
Silver for Babuta
Olympian Babuta clinched the silver medal in the men’s 10m air rifle event while Arya Borse finished a creditable fifth in the women’s 10m air rifle in her first ever final of the World Cup.
In a nail-biting final, Babuta (252.3), who had finished fourth at the Paris Games last year, lost by just 0.1 points to reigning Olympic champion Sheng Lihao of China (252.4).
Seasoned Hungary shooter Istvan Peni, with over 40 ISSF medals to his name, bagged the bronze in what was a world-class field with a total of 229.8.
The final featured a star-studded line-up, including reigning world champion and Paris silver medallist Victor Lindgren of Sweden, Jon-Hermann Hegg of Norway and India’s former world champion Rudrankksh Patil.
India had a chance for a double podium finish, but Rudrankksh was unfortunately docked his 11th shot by the jury due to a technical infraction. As a result, the Indian finished eighth, bowing out at the first elimination stage.
Patil had won gold at the World Cup in Buenos Aires last week.
India’s Hriday Hazarika narrowly missed out on the final, finishing 10th with a score of 629.3.
Good show by Arya
In the 10m air rifle women’s event, Arya finished fifth after shooting a superb 633.9 on Saturday to qualify for the final.
She finished behind the reigning junior world champion and eventual gold medallist Wang Zifei of China, who set three world records on the day.
Arya, bowed out after the 18th shot of the 24-shot final, her score reading 188.1, just 0.1 behind silver-winning reigning world champion Han Jiayu of China, who was fourth at that stage.
Wang also led a Chinese sweep of the medals in the event as another upcoming young talent Fan Xinyi, took bronze. She set a junior qualification record (635.9) as well as the new junior and senior final world records (254.8) in a stunning display of air rifle shooting.
That consolidated China’s position at the top of the charts with three gold, three silver and four bronze medals.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI)
