Anish Bhanwala won his first senior World Cup medal at Thursday’s Shooting World Cup in Cairo, and his bronze came from three hard-fought shootouts.
With his medal, India finished this World Cup at the top of the standings with seven medals, including four golds.
His medal also broke a 12-year period without Indian medals in the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol. Prior to Bhanwala, the only Indian to win a medal in an international competition was Vijay Kumar, who won silver at the 2012 London Olympics and finished twice at the podium at the world championships.
Italy’s Massimo Spinella won gold with 32 hits in the medal match, while World Championship silver medalist Clement Bessage of France lost two hits after 40 shots.
Anish qualified for the ranking round in sixth place with a score of 581. He was in second place of the night and shot 287 in the rapid fire round to get through. He found himself next to Frenchman Jan Chesnel, Czech Republic Matej Rampula and Massimo in the second of two ranking matches. And here he had to go through three shootouts with Jan Chesnel. They tied the first two with three and four hits each. In the third, Yan was finally down with two hits, and Anish hit four to get through.
The youngest in the medal match, Anish started with a bang, taking five out of five hits in the first rapid-fire series of shots, while everyone else opened with three hits. He had a tough second series but came back with four hard hits in the third to head the match together with 11 hits along with Bessage.
In the fourth, all three, except for Bessage, received five hits each, and Anish again took the lead and won a medal. Christian Reitz was knocked out at this stage with 13 hits.
Anish then had two average streaks of two and three hits respectively and lost third while Massimo won.
“Before that, I was fifth in two finals and today I was determined to win my first World Championship medal,” he said after the match.
Giving an insight into his state of mind before the shootings, Anish said: “I focused on staying calm and it paid off. helped today.
“The fourth series was more difficult in the medal match, where I had to defeat the former Olympic champion (gold medalist of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro Christian Reitz from Germany). and done excellently. It made me happy.”
In the Women’s 50m Rifle, 3rd position, India finished outside the medal bracket. Sift Kaur Samra shot 585 in qualifying and finished 16th, while Manini Kaushik (584) and Anjum Modgil (593) finished 22nd and 27th respectively.
Source: www.espn.com
