India’s Abhinav Shaw and Gautami Bhanot won the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team gold on Day Two of the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Championship Juniors in Changwon, South Korea, defeating the French pairing of Oceanne Muller and Romain Aufrere 17-13, in the gold medal match.
This was India’s third gold of the competition, which means they find themselves on the second spot in the medal tally currently, with a silver and two bronze medals to boot, the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) informed in a release on Monday.
China leads the tally with the same number of gold and bronze as India, but with an additional silver to show for their efforts.
India also bagged a bronze in the second medal event of the day, the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team, when Abhinav Choudhury and Sainyam, who had won gold in the Air Pistol women’s individual on Sunday, got the better of the hosts’ Kim Juri and Kim Kanghyun 17-11, in the bronze medal match.
Abhinav and Gautami had earlier shot 627.4 in qualification to finish second amongst 35 teams to qualify for the gold medal match-up. Oceanne and Romain had topped it with 632.4, but the Indian pair reversed the order in the final with some gritty shooting. They were down 0-4 initially but showed tremendous resolve to pull through in the end.
The pair of Abhinav Choudhary and Sainyam shot a combined 574 in qualification to finish fourth. That gave them a shot at bronze, which they duly obliged.
Day Three has four exciting finals lined up namely the Men’s and Women’s 10m Air Rifle finals and the Men’s and Women’s Skeet finals.
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