Parth Rakesh Mane bags double gold

Lima: Parth Rakesh Mane picked up a double gold as he crowned junior world champion in the 10m air rifle along with winning the team event as India’s medal tally continued to surge at the end of competition day three of the on-going International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) Junior World Championship Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun.

After pocketing the 10m air rifle individual title, Parth, combining with Ajay Malik and Abhinav Shaw, won gold in 10m air rifle men’s team event . India’s third gold of the day came when Gautami Bhanot, Sambhavi Kshirsagar and Anoushka Thakur, won junior women’s 10m air rifle team event.

Parth Mane’s effort was, however, the highlight of the day as the 16-year-old overcame a field-oozing class with consummate ease to deliver a virtuoso performance. He shot 250.7 in the 24-shot final to pip reigning junior Asian champion Huang Liwanlin of China by 0.7.

Braden Peiser of the USA took bronze. Paris Olympic silver medallist Victor Lindgren of Sweden was fourth, while reigning double junior world champion Romain Aufrere was sixth.

Parth’s compatriots, the in-form Ajay Malik and the seasoned-at-15 Abhinav Shaw finished fifth and seventh, respectively. Ajay went down in shoot-off to Lindgren to finish with 186.7 while Abhinav bowed out in seventh with 144.2. Earlier in the 62-strong qualification round, Ajay had come second with 628.8, Parth fourth (627.7) and Abhinav qualified sixth with 627.0 after 60-shots. Two other Indians in the fray, Umamahesh Maddineni (625.5) and Talwar Singh (625.2) finished 13th and 14th, respectively.

That ensured that the trio of Parth, Ajay and Abhinav tallied a total of 1883.5 to easily overcome USA (1877.6) and Germany (1873.9) to win the team gold.

Three Indians also made the junior women’s air rifle final but missed out on individual medals. Gautami Bhanot shot extremely well to finish second in the 90-strong qualification field with a score of 634.7.

China’s Wang Zifei topped with a junior world record score of 635.7. Shambhavi Kshirsagar also shot well to finish fourth (632.6) and so did Ojasvi Thakur (631.4) to qualify in fifth place. Anoushka Thakur was 17th with 627.5 while Saumya Khedkar was 20th with 627.4.

Gautami then finished fourth in the final, going down to the bronze-winning US shooter by 0.2 after the 20th shot. She finished with a score of 209.3. Shambhavi (188.4) was fifth and Ojasvi (146.1) bowed out in seventh place.

Gautami and Shambhavi, however, combined effectively with Anoushka Thakur to clinch the team competition, bossing the USA with a junior world team record score of 1894.8. Norway was third.

Indians also competed in the junior men’s and women’s skeet competitions at the shotgun ranges, however, without much luck. Gurfateh Singh Sandhu finished 29th with a score of 112 in qualification, while Bhavtegh Singh Gill also shot the same score in the junior men’s skeet to finish 31st on countback. Harmehar Singh Lally was 44th with 107. Mansi Raghuwanshi in the junior women’s skeet was the best-placed Indian in shotgun. Her score of 109 gave her 8th place, as she missed out on qualification by a point. Mufaddal Dessawala and Shivani Raikwar shot scores of 98 each to finish in 30th and 31st positions, respectively. India continue to lead the medal tally with five golds.