Golden Start for India as Apurvi Chandela Wins Year’s Second Women’s 10m Air Rifle World Cup Gold in Munich


New Delhi, May 26, 2019:World number one ApurviChandela of India continued her golden run of form, winning the women’s 10m Air Rifle event on competition day one of the year’s third International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Rifle/Pistol stage in Munich, Germany. The Jaipur girl shot a score of 251 in the final on Sunday to outshine Wang Luyao of China, who shot 250.8 for the silver medal.

This was Apurvi’s second ISSF world cup gold of the year after winning the same event with a world record score in New Delhi back in February. In the second Beijing leg she had finished just outside the medals in fourth place. This was also her career’s fourth ISSF medal.

ElavenilValarivan, who also made it to the finals along with teammate Apurvi, narrowly missed out on an ISSF world cup medal, finishing fourth to eventual bronze medalist Xu Hong of China by just 0.1 points. After 20-shots in the 24-shot final, Xu edged out Elavenil 208.4 to 208.3.

The gold and silver catfight between Apurvi and Wang also reached the final shot, where with the former just 0.1 ahead, shot a 10.4 to Wang’s 10.3 to clinch the issue.

Earlier, all three Indians in the 149-strong qualifying field had a solid day with Apurvi and Elavenil taking the top two spots with scores of 633 and 632.7 after 60-shots each. AnjumMoudgil shot 628.9 to finish in 11th place, just 1.1 points outside the final qualifying score of 630.0.

Indians had good returns in the days other events as well. After the first round of qualifying in the Women’s 25m Pistol, Asian Games champion RahiSarnobat stood in second position with a score of 294. A good rapid fire round on Monday and she would fancy a shot at medals and quota. Manu Bhaker shot 289 and was a bit behind the pace in 24th spot while ChinkiYadav shot 276 to be in 95th place.

The two Tokyo 2020 Olympic quotas available on the day went to Laura-GeorgetaComan of Romania and 16-year old Hungarian EszterMeszaros, who finished 5th and 6th respectively in the women’s 10m air rifle, given the top four consisting of two Indians and two Chinese were not eligible.

Monday has three finals on the schedule with six Tokyo quota places up for grabs.