India's Sanjeev Rajput, Tejaswini Sawant win 50m rifle 3 positions mixed team gold
New Delhi: The seasoned Indian duo of Sanjeev Rajput and Tejaswini Sawant won the gold medal in the 50m rifle 3 positions mixed team event of the ISSF World Cup here on Friday.
The Indians beat Ukraine's Serhiy Kulish and Anna Ilina 31-29 in the gold medal match, using their years of experience to good effect to emerge victorious. The Indian gold count went up to 11 with their top finish.
Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar and Sunidhi Chauhan won the bronze medal after getting the better of USA's Timothy Sherry and Virginia Thrasher 31-15 at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range.
To start with, Rajput and Sawant were 1-3 behind before leading 5-3.
But the visiting shooters then raced ahead of their opponents before the Indians made another strong comeback to regain the top position and from there on, the home team maintained the lead to end on a winning note
The Ukrainians tried to make a match of it but the home favourites managed to prevail in an exciting final.
In Qualification 2, Rajput and Sawant finished at the top with a total score of 588, with both the shooters getting 294 each.
While Tomar and Chauhan logged 580 to end the final qualification at fourth place and make the bronze medal round.
Kulish and Ilina were placed third with 583, ahead of the American duo of Thrasher and Sherry (581).
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
