Leading Indian rifle shooters Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar and Sift Kaur Samra failed to make an impact even as little-known Smit Rameshbhai Moradiya clinched the men's 10m air rifle silver after an extremely close fight for gold in the World University Shooting Championship on Monday. (More Sports News)
On a day when Rameshbhai was the only Indian to win a medal, his more illustrious counterpart, Olympian Tomar finished fifth in the event, while Samra, a member of the Paris 🍰Games contingent, ended at fourth in the women's 50m rifle three-positions event.
🍎Rameshbhai, who hails from Gujarat, missed the gold medal to Czech Republic's Jiri Privratsky by just 0.1 point, scoring 252.1 in the final. It was a grand double for Privratsky, who shot 252.2 to claim the top-podium finish and add to the men's 50m rifle three-positions gold he won on Sunday.
♌The 23-year-old Privratsky had recently clinched a silver (50m rifle 3-positions) and bronze (10m air rifle) in the year-ending ISSF World Cup Final held at the Karni Singh Range here last month.
ওTomar shot 187.7 for a fifth-place finish, while another Indian, Umamahesh Maddineni (208.8), finished fourth.
𝄹Earlier, in the qualification round, Rameshbhai shot 630.0 to enter the eight-shooter final in second place. Umamahesh and Tomar shot 629.8 and 628.3 to enter the final in third and fifth place respectively.
⛎Samra, one of the best 50m rifle exponents in the country, was a big disappointment, finishing fourth with 439.6. France's Agathe Girard (462.3) won the gold medal, while Poland's Julia Piotrowska (462.0) and Anna Janssen (450.2) clinched the silver and bronze respectively.
🏅Samra had earlier secured a place in the eight-shooter final at seventh in the qualification round with a score of 587.
♋India have so far won nine medals, including a gold struck by the 10m air pistol mixed team of Palak Gulia and Amit Sharma on Sunday.
💧As many as 220 shooters from across 23 countries are competing in the championship. The event is being hosted by Manav Rachna International Institute of Research.
