ISSF World Cup: Gold for Elavenil-Divyansh!

New Delhi, Mar 22: After India topping the medals tally at the ISSF World Cup, it has added another feather to its cap as the mixed duo Divyansh Singh Panwar and Elavenil Valarivan won the gold medal on Monday in the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team event.

 

For the gold medal match, the Indian team of Divyansh and Elavenil left no room for opponent to settle down. They were in top form as they led from start to finish to strike gold and on a brilliant display of shooting to beat the Hungarian team of Istvan Peni and Eszter Denes 16-10 to take home the top prize.

 

 

 

The third place was bagged by USA's Lucas Kozeniesky and Mary Carolynn Tucker after narrowly beating the Polish team of Aneta Stankiewicz and Tomasz Bartnik 17-15 in a hotly-contested bronze medal match.

 

 

Divyansh Singh Panwar, who had won the bronze in the 10m Air Rifle individual event, came out all guns blazing, getting scores of 10.7, 10.7 and 10.8 in the first three series.

 

 

 

Elavenil, on the other hand, started slowly but improved drastically as the match continued. That proved to be crucial for India as Divyansh, after his fast start, had some shots in the low 10s that allowed the Hungarian team to catch up.

 

Having led 5-1 initially, the Hungarians did well to make it 6-6 but some not so good shots from the young Eszter Denes allowed India to regain their lead and open a 10-6 gap. Denes and Peni drew refused to give up and drew level at 10-10. But in the last few series, both Divyansh and Elavenil scored in high 10s to end any hope of a Hungarian comeback.

 

Hosts India on Sunday climbed on top of the medals tally. The Indian contingent had added four more medals to their kitty, including two gold and a historic bronze in the Women's Skeet event. With that, they had three medals of every colour, for a total of nine medals. The USA was second with the same number of golds as India, but with only two more silvers at this stage, have a tally of five medals.

 

The two golds that India had won on Sunday came in the Men's and Women's 10M Air Pistol team events. The women went first when the trio of Manu Bhaker, Yashaswini Deswal, and Shri Nivetha beat Poland convincingly by a margin of 16-8 in the final.

 

In this new format, the three shooters of each team shoot a single shot and the team with the higher combined tally get two points. If there is a tie, then the teams get one point each. The first team to 16 points or more, wins the match.

 

India's second gold of the day had come when Saurabh Chaudhary, Abhishek Verma, and Shahzar Rizvi, got the better of Vietnam 17-11, in the Men's 10M Air Pistol final.