Rudrankksh Patil bags 10M Air Rifle gold

Cairo: Reigning world champion Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil on Tuesday pocketed the gold medal in the 10m Air Rifle men event at the ISSF World Cup Rifle and Pistol, taking India's medal tally to four medals.

The 19-year-old World number one Indian beat Maximilian Ulbrich 16-8 in the final. Croatia's Miran Maricic took the bronze medal. This was Patil's second gold at the ongoing competition, having won the mixed team gold on Monday.

After finishing seventh in the qualification round with 629.3, Patil topped the ranking match with 262 on the back of some sensational shooting to make it to the gold medal play-off against the German, who finished second with 260.6. The other Indian shooters in the fray men's 10m air rifle, Divyansh Singh Panwar and Hriday Hazarika narrowly missed out on qualification

In the gold medal play-off, the Indian held early lead with a fantastic 10.6 against Ulbrich's thin 10 in the first series. Both the shooters engaged in a close contest till the scores were levelled 7-7 after the seventh series. Later on, the Indian continued with his clinical shooting and quickly raced to the 16 points to clinch the top spot on the podium.

India currently sits on top of the medal tally with four medals including three gold medals and a bronze.

Indian shooters swept the mixed team air pistol and rifle competitions on Monday. R Narmada Nithin and Rudrankksh won the 10m air rifle mixed team event to give India their first gold. Varun Tomar, who had won bronze in the individual event on Sunday, and Rhythm Sangwan then clinched the 10m air pistol mixed team competition.

Last year at the World Championships in Cairo, Patil secured the second Olympic quota for India after Bhowneesh Mendiratta had sealed the one in trap event at the shotgun World Championship in Osijek, Croatia.