LIMA: Junior shooters capped off a dominant performance with a gold medal in the men’s 50m pistol team event at the ISSF Junior World Championship Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun, as India topped the medal tally with 13 gold, three silver and eight bronze medals. Italy was second with five gold and four silver and bronze medals each, while Norway placed third with four gold and a total of 10 medals.
The junior men’s 50m pistol team of Deepak Dalal (545), Kamaljeet (543) and Raj Chandra (528) combined for a tally of 1616, to put it across Azerbaijan by a point. Armenia was third.
Mukesh Nelavalli also won an individual bronze in the event, his sixth medal of the competition, shooting a total of 548 over 60-shots. Azerbaijan’s Imran Garayev won gold with a score of 552.
In the junior women's 50m pistol, Parisha Gupta won an individual silver shooting 540. She could not overhaul Hungary’s Miriam Jako’s effort of 546, which was a junior world record.
Sejal Kamble (529), Ketan (525) and Kanishka Dagar (513) also combined to win Indian a team silver in the event, finishing behind team Azerbaijan. Divanshi, the fifth Indian in fray, shot 523 to finish eighth.
In the other event of the final day, Shardul Vihan and Sabeera Harris combined to give India a bronze in the junior mixed team trap competition, played over 75 targets each. Shardul shot 71 to Sabeera’s 67, as the duo’s total of 138, was behind the scores of gold-winning Czech Republic (141+8) and silver winning Italy (141+7).
Zuhair Khan and Bhavya Tripathi, the second Indian pair in the event, shot a total of 134 to finish joint sixth.
The ISSF bandwagon now moves to New Delhi for the final stop of its 2024 calendar as the season-ending ISSF World Cup Final Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun is scheduled from October 13 to 18 at the Karni Singh Shooting Range.