Young shooting sensation, Manu Bhaker rewrote the history books at the 2019 ISSF World Cup at as she bagged India’s first gold medal at the tournament this year in Women’s 10m Air Pistol on Thursday. On her road to glory, Manu Bhaker broke the junior world record with her total of 244.7. Manu Bhaker also equalled an amazing feat with the gold medal performance as she became only the second Indian shooter after Heena Sidhu to win a gold medal in Women’s 10m Air Pistol at the ISSF World Cup.
Manu clinched the gold as she shot a total of 244.7. She was followed by Serbia’s Zorana Arunovic and Quian Wang of China on the podium. The Serbian shot a total of 241.9 to take the silver while Quian Wang settled for bronze with a total score of 221.8.
Another Indian Yashaswini Deswal who was also competing in the same event could only manage sixth-place finish in the final round with a total score of 158.8. Interestingly, both Yashaswini and Manu had qualified for the final with an equal score of 578 in finishing 7th and 8th in the qualifying round.
There will be more medals up for grab as in the men’s 10m air pistol event, Abhishek Verma and Saurabh Chaudhary have qualified for the final. Verma topped the qualifications with 588 while Chaudhary was seventh with 581. Both these shooters have already booked and Olympic quota berth for Tokyo Olympics.
Earlier, Commonwealth Games gold-medallist Manu and Rahi Sarnobat failed to qualify for the finals of the women’s 25m air pistol event. Manu Bhaker in the Women’s 25m Pistol had missed out making the final by a point on Wednesday. Manu shot 583 in qualification, the same score as two other competitors, one of whom made the finals with Manu losing out on lesser number of inner 10s. Asian games champion Rahi Sarnobat shot 569 for a 18thplace finish in the Women’s 25m Pistol.
