ISSF World Cup Baku | Indian women's team bags gold in 10m air rifle team event
Indian shooters Elavenil Valarivan, Shreya Agarwal, and Ramita struck gold, as they won the top prize in the 10m air rifle women's team event at the ISSF World Cup 2022 in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Tuesday. The Indian team defeated Denmark 17-5 in a one-sided affair, in the gold medal match.
Interestingly, this is India’s first medal at the ongoing ISSF World Cup in Baku. Tokyo Olympian Elavenil Valarivan was at her best as she shot above 10 in all the 11 series, in the final of the event. This performance came after the Indian team had also topped the qualification stage 1 with 944.4, ahead of South Korea.
In the stage 2 qualification, the Indian team fell behind Denmark, but still managed to make it to the final.
On the other hand, the men’s 10m air rifle team, featuring Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil, Paarth Makhija, and Dhanush Srikanth, lost to Croatia 16-10 in the bronze medal match. Paarth had an ordinary series of 9s in the match that cost India heavily. In qualification, the Indian team was second and third, respectively.
Prior to this, India had fielded two different teams for the mixed rifle events, but both failed to reach the medal rounds. Now the shooters will compete in the 50m rifle 3 positions events from Thursday. For now, India is currently fifth on the medals tally with Serbia leading with a total of four medals.