New Delhi, March 21 (IANS) India’s Ganemat Sekhon won a bronze medal in the women’s skeet event while Gurjoat Khangura finished sixth in the men’s category in the World Cup at Dr Karni Singh Shooting Ranges on Sunday.
Ganemat, 20, shot 40 points out of 60 shots in the final to finish third, behind Kazakhstan’s Zoya Kravchenko who won silver while England’s Amber Hill won gold.
“My target was to reach the final and aim for a podium finish. I’m excited to win bronze in the senior World Cup at the home range,” Ganemat said in a post-match interaction with the media.
Both Amber, 23, and Zoya, 21, were tied at 51 points at the end of the 60-shot final. In the shoot-off Amber shot four to settle for silver while Zoya scored three.
Karttiki Singh Shaktawat, 19, the second Indian in fray, shot 32 to finish fourth in the final. Romania’s 30-year-old Roxana Sofia Miklos scored 22 points to finish fifth while Poland’s Natalia Szamrej, 29, was sixth with 14 points.
In the men’s skeet event, the competition was more intense. Denmark’s Jesper Hansen was lucky to survive a shoot off in the preliminary round to stay in the race for a medal. He was almost flawless in the 60-shot final, having missed only two targets to win gold.
Saif Bin Futais of the UAE who won silver with a score of 51 while the 2012 Olympic Games bronze medallist, Al Attiya Nasser of Qatar, shot 44 points to clinch bronze.
Khangura, 26, youngest of all the shooters in the final, had a poor start. As the match progressed, he wasn’t able to recover. He finished sixth with a total of 17.
Earlier, in the preliminary round, there was intense battle between the top eight shooters for a place in the final. Only the top six shooters advanced to the final, the medal round.
There was a shoot off for the first position between Qatar’s Nasser Al Attiya and Rashid Hamad (Qatar). Both shooters had shot 123 in the qualification. In the tie shot, Attiya shot 2 to edge past Hamad who scored 1 to lead the field.
Both England’s Karl Frederick Killander and Saif Bin Futais of the UAE shot 122 in qualification rounds. In the tie shot, Killander beat Futais 4-3.
Down the ladder, four shooters, including India’s Mairaj Ahmad Khan, Khangura and Hansen shot 121/150 in the preliminary round. Since there were only two spots for the final as four shooters had already made the cut, there was a shoot-off between the four shooters.
In the tie shot, Hansen scored 10 to stay at fifth spot while Khangura scored 9 to finish sixth. Khan was unlucky to have missed the final as he shot 7 to finish at seventh position. Dimitris Konstantinou of Cyprus also shot 121 in the preliminary round but finished eighth after the shoot off.
The field was highly competitive as eight shooters shot 120 in the qualification round, including Pakistani Usman Chand, who finished 15th.
Tokyo Olympic Games quota winner Angadvir Singh Bajwa shot 117 to finish at the 19th position.
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