ISSF World Championship: Gold rush continues for juniors, Gurpreet adds senior silver
CHANGWON Sep 14 : Gurpreet Singh clinched a silver in the senior men’s standard pistol but India’s junior shooters continued to hold centre-stage, snaring two gold medals to steer the country to its best-ever finish in the ISSF World Championships in Changwon on Friday.
Vijayveer Sidhu, 16, shot a gold in the 25m standard pistol event for junior men after combining with Rajkanwar Singh Sandhu and Adarsh Singh to claim the team gold on the last day of the prestigious International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) competition.
India signed off third in the overall medals tally with 11 gold, nine silver and seven bronze medals for a total of 27, making this their best performance in the showpiece.
Sidhu, who finished fourth in the 25m pistol Thursday, managed an individual score of 572 to finish ahead of Korean Lee Gunheyok (570) and China’s Haojie Zhu 565).
In the team competition, Sidhu, Sandhu (564) and Singh (559) totalled 1695 to fetch the top honours with Korea (1693) and Czech Republic (1674) settling for the silver and the bronze medals respectively.
Singh managed a fourth-place finish in the individual competition.
In the senior competition, Gurpreet Singh ensured that the contingent signed off on a positive note with his silver.
The former Commonwealth Games gold-medallist fired a score of 579 to finish second behind Ukraine’s Pavlo Korostylov, who shot a score of 581. The bronze medal went to Koreas Kim Junhong, who shot the same score as the Indian but had lesser inner-10s to his credit.
India ended fourth in the team event with Gurpreet, Amanpreet Singh (560) and London Olympics silver-medallist Vijay Kumar (560) combining for a score of 1699.
India’s junior women’s skeet team finished a creditable fourth with the trio of Simranpreet Kaur, Parinaaz Dhaliwal and Areeba Khan totalling 318. None of them managed to qualify for the individual finals.
In the men’s skeet event, Angad Vir Singh Bajwa shot 118 to finish 49th, followed by Sheeraz Sheikh (115) at 69th. Mairaj Ahmad Khan shot 113 to finish 77th. The team finished 20th.
In the men’s 300M rifle 3 positions Parul Kumar (1134) was the best-placed Indian at 24th, while Amit Kumar shot 1124 to finish 28th. Akash Ravidas was further down at at 35th with a score of shot 1077. The team finished 8th with 3335 points.
The country has managed to clinch two Olympic quota places from the first qualifying event for Tokyo 2020 Games.
Anjum Moudgil and Apurvi Chandela are shooters to secure quota places for the Olympics by winning a silver and finishing fourth respectively in the women’s 10m air rifle event.
Though the two shooters have secured quotas, as per the stated policy, the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) will take the final call on selection, based on the aggregate scores of shooters (in international tournaments and selection trials) leading up to the Olympic Games.
With the Youth Olympic Games scheduled for October, the World Championship concludes ISSF’s engagements for the year.
The next big event will come up in February next year with the first World Cup stage, which will also be a Tokyo 2020 qualifying event, to be held in New Delhi’s Dr. Karni Singh range.
Courtesy: thehindu.com
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Himanta resigns as Assam CM, paving way for formation of new govt
Guwahati (PTI): Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Wednesday resigned along with his cabinet colleagues, paving the way for formation of a new government led by the BJP, officials said.
The BJP-led NDA bagged 102 seats in the 126-member assembly. The assembly elections were held in a single phase on April 9, and counting of votes took place on May 4.
"Following the formal notification of the results of #AssamElections2026 and to enable the formation of the new government, Dr @himantabiswa tendered his resignation as Chief Minister along with that of the council of Ministers to Hon'ble Governor Shri @Laxmanacharya54 today at Lok Bhawan," the Chief Minister's Office said in a post on X.
ALSO READ: 11-year-old dies by suicide after sexual assault in Bareilly; accused arrested
The Governor has accepted the resignation, and requested Sarma to continue as the caretaker CM till the new government assumes office, it said.
Later, speaking to reporters outside the Lok Bhawan, Sarma said the oath-taking ceremony is likely to take place after May 11.
“As it was a historic win, we have invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to grace the occasion," he said.
The new Assam chief minister will be selected at a meeting of the BJP legislature party in presence of central observers, Sarma said.
