Simranpreet wins 25m pistol gold; Aishwary, Anish clinch silver in World Cup Final

Doha, Dec 7 (PTI) Young Simranpreet Kaur Brar overcame a challenging field to win the women's 25m pistol gold while men's 50m rifle 3-position exponent Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar bagged a silver on his ISSF World Cup Final debut here on Sunday.

World Championships silver-medallist in 25m rapid-fire pistol Anish Bhanwala also ended the year on a high with another second-place finish as India took their tally to six, including two gold, three silver and a bronze.

With another strong showing on day two, India maintained their second position on the medal tally behind China who have three gold, two silver and three bronze.

Simranpreet, whose father left his government job to support his daughter, did her parents proud with biggest achievement of her career by shooting a superb 41 in the final, equalling the World junior record in the process.

The other Indian to qualify for the eight-shooter final, Esha Singh finished seventh. Double Olympic bronze medallist Manu Bhaker could not make the final after finishing ninth in the qualification round with a score of 581.

In the qualification round 21-year-old Simranpreet, who had won a silver at the World Cup in Lima earlier this year, shot 585, while Esha tallied 585 to finish fifth and fourth respectively and make the final.

Simranpreet began slowly, missing three targets in the first series of five shots to slip to eighth, and last, position.

But she rallied thereafter and fired three perfect 5s in the competition to jump to the China's ace shooter and reigning 10m air pistol world champion Yao Qianxun, who finished a distant second with 36 points, and former world champion Doreen Vennekamp of Germany who took the bronze.

Aishwary excels in 50m rifle 3P =================== In men's 50m rifle 3-positions, Aishwary finished 0.9 points behind Czechia's Jiri Privratsky, who shot 414.2 in the final played in the new ISSF format of 40 shots. Olympic champion Liu Yukun won bronze.

Aishwary, who is a double Olympian, former junior world champion, and reigning Asian champion, has also won a silver in the World Championship last month.

Aishwary shot 595 in qualification to finish second behind China's Tian Jiaming who blazed the Lusail shooting ranges with a world record 598.

Athlete of the Year Jon-Hermann Hegg of Norway and Hungarian ace Istvan Peni were the other top guns in the top eight, which again saw three Chinese go through.

Aishwary was fourth with a score of 102.8 after the 10 shots in the first kneeling position, shot over two-series of five shots each.

The next 10 shots of the second prone position is where Aishwary found his momentum and climbed up to second on the leaderboard with strong series of 52.9 and 52 respectively.

Privratsky meanwhile was charting a course of his own, 3.3 ahead of Aishwary at the stage. Olympic champion Liu was third with 20 standing position shots still to be played.

Aishwary then outgunned Privratsky over the next 10 shots to bring the difference down to 1.5. After the 31st, it went down to 0.5 as Privratsky was finding it difficult to get into the 10-ring.

Peni and Tian were first to exit the final as Aishwary went into the lead after the 33rd shot.

The young Frenchman Romain Aufrere then lost the battle for bronze with the Olympic champion, as Privratsky caught up with Aishwary and went 0.5 ahead again after the 37th shot with a couple of high 10s, as the Indian faltered a bit.

The gap was however a mere 0.3 ahead of the final two shots and Aishwary fired a 10.1 to the Czech's 10.3 and then a 10.6 for his 40th, putting Privratsky decisively ahead to land gold, his third ISSF yellow metal of the year.

Anish makes a mark ============= Anish's fighting spirit came to the fore once again in 25m rapid-fore pistol as he overcame a nerve-wracking shoot-off against reigning world champion Clement Bessaguet of France to remain in contention for the gold medal.

But Paris Olympic champion Li Yuehong of China proved too good for the India winning, gold with a tally of 33 points, while Bhanwala took the silver with a score of 31. Olympian Vijayveer Sidhu took the fourth spot behind Bessaguet. PTI AH AM AM BS BS