Nishaan Sports Shooting Academy_Bangalore

Apurvi Chandela from India won the 10m Air Rifle Women’s Final at the 2019 ISSF World Cup in Munich today having, only won her first World Cup Gold medal earlier this year on her home soil in New Delhi. Chandela scored 633.0 points in qualification, where she was ranked first, and 251.0 points in the final.

Luyao Wang from the Republic of China took the Silver medal, scoring 631.9 points in qualification and 250.8 in the final.

Another of China’s shooters, Hong Xu, won the Bronze medal with a qualification of 630.8 points and 229.4 in the final.

Summer Camp 2019..

India’s Chandela rocks New Delhi’s final hall: gold and world record
ISSF World Cup Rifle / Pistol · New Delhi, IND

The 2019 ISSF Wolrd Cup season kicked off today from New Delhi, India, where the first match of the year - the 10m Air Rifle Women Final - took place at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range.

The match turned into a triumph for the home country, as local hero Apurvi Chandela secured gold in a spectacular fashion, while setting a new world record of 252.9 points, out of 24 final shots. That means she scored more than 10.5 points per shot, in average, throughout the final: an exceptional achievement.

After a relatively slow start, the 26-year old shooting star of India climbed into the upper part of the leaderboard. The crowd burst into applauses as she scored a sharp 10.8 on her 16th shot, moving up to the second place. A 10.6 on her 17th shot propelled her atop of the table, where she continued shooting excellent tens, to end up in first place.

Chandela’s 252.9 final score turned out to be her personal best, as well as a new world record that shattered the previous 252.4 record set by China’s Zhao Ruozhu last year.

The Chinese athlete was part of today’s match, and closed in second place with 251.8 points. The 2018 Asian Games Champion led the match throughout the first shot, but couldn’t resist the progression of Chandela, who was supported here by a cheerful crowd of local supporters.

The second Chinese finalist, Xu Hong, 20, took today’s Bronze with 230.4 points.
With their silver-bronze combo, the two Chinese teammates also secured the two Tokyo 2020 quota places up for grabs, as Chandela had already won an Olympic ticket at last year’s World Championship (each athlete can only win a maximum of one quota). The third Chinese finalist, Zhu Yingjie, the 2017 Junior World Champion, closed the match in 4th place with 206.7 points.

“Competing on my home turf added some extra pressure,” Chandela said, after the final. “At the same time, to hear them cheering gave me the motivation for a strong competition.”

“I started shooting in 2008, after Abhinav Bindra’s victory at the 2008 Olympic Games. My family always supported me, and they are a big part of my success. My mum was here, in the crowd: She always follow me.”

“My aim is Tokyo 2020. The Games are the big dream.”

The road to Tokyo is still long, I won’t stop here, there are many international competitions ahead of me, before that.”

It was an evening meant to be a celebratory welcome for the shooters with a fine cultural function for the shooting World Cup in the Capital, but the announcement by the ISSF president Vladimir Lisin that the Olympic quotas were taken away at the behest of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), took the sting away from the efforts of the host.

The ISSF president quoted the instance of the Pakistani shooters not getting the visa to come to India and compete in the World Cup, as the reason for the move by the IOC.

‘’It was no fault of the organising committee, or the ISSF. It is political interference of sport. No athlete can be discriminated, as per the Olympic charter. So, the IOC has said no Olympic Quota places in this World Cup. The quota places will be distributed in another World Cup’’, said the ISSF president, even as he declared the World Cup Open.

Saying that he did not want to end his speech with the bad news, Vladimir Lisin said that the shooters can give their best performances and they would count towards the medals and records.

‘’It is disheartening. But, we can prepare better for winning the Olympic quota places in other World Cups’’, said Sanjeev Rajput, who took the oath of honour, along with Heena Sidhu, at the opening ceremony.

Ironically, India had hosted the Olympic qualifying event for the Rio Olympics, when the IOC took the Olympic quota places from the Asian Championships hosted by Kuwait, citing a similar case of political interference.

The president of the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) and the vice president of the ISSF, Raninder Singh, who had made all the efforts to host the first World Cup of the season with Olympic quota places, tried to put up a brave face, saying that nothing had been decided as yet with regard to the Olympic quota places.

There was no hint from the ISSF about the announcement, and the president had taken the responsibility to break the bad news himself.

The Union Sports Minister Col. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore was scheduled to be part of the opening ceremony, but he did not make it to the shooting range. In fact, the opening ceremony closed much before the scheduled time, despite some electrifying performances from Kathak walkers etc.

About 50-odd countries have assembled for the World Cup, with the main objective of winning 16 of the Olympic quota places in eight events for men and women. For the first time, the World Cup in shooting will be broadcast world wide, as the ISSF has a signed the deal to that effect, starting with this World Cup.

There will be official pre-event training on Friday, and the World Cup will start on Saturday.

Note: Eventually, early morning on Friday, the IOC announced that the Olympic quota places were being taken away only from the 25-metre rapid fire pistol event, much to the relief of the host and the shooting fraternity.

*Devanshi Rana, reminds everyone of Jaspal Rana in Khelo India Youth Games*

It was the turn of Devanshi Rana to give a further hint of the prowess of the children of prodigy shooters, as she won the women’s sports pistol gold amidst considerable drama in the Khelo India Youth Games at the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex, Balewadi, on Sunday.

Daughter of pistol ace Jaspal Rana, who had won the Asian Games gold in 1994 in Hiroshima and went on to win three more gold in 2006 in Doha, Devanshi won the climax with a cool performance, in the absence of her friend, the world beating Manu Bhaker.

On a day when Mehuli Ghosh won her second gold, the mixed air rifle in partnership with the 10-year-old Abhinav Shaw for Bengal, and Manisha Keer won her second gold, in mixed trap in association with Anwer Hassan Khan for Madhya Pradesh, the 19-year-old Devanshi beat Anjali Choudhary by one point for the 25-metre sports pistol gold.

A student of Lady Shriram College in Delhi, Devanshi led 23-20 before the last series of five shots. However, a long-drawn shoot-off between Anjali Choudhary and qualification topper Abhidnya Patil (579), saw Devanshi lose her rhythm.

In the shoot-off that stretched to 20 shots over four series, Anjali had squeezed her way past Abhidnya, with telling last shots in almost each round. Eventually the Haryana girl had failed to give luck any further chance, as she did not load five bullets for her gold series. After shooting three out of four in the last series, Anjali’s pistol had no ammunition to fire the fifth, for a possible magical finish.

In contrast, Devanshi could score only one point out of five, and that proved the clincher.

Anjali had grappled with her malfunctioning gun earlier during the final, and was in fact given a spare magazine, when her pistol failed a second time.

Having exhausted her ammunition, owing to the extended shoot-off, Anjali had erred in not seeking a loan for the title round.

Mehuli Ghosh was brilliant in guiding Abhinav Shaw to the gold in a strong field, the way she had done in the last national championship in Kerala. Shooting second, Mehuli scored strong to help Bengal to the gold with a big margin of 5.6 points over Rajasthan’s Divyansh Singh Panwar and Manini Kaushik.

Manisha Keer was equally brave in helping Madhya Pradesh to the mixed gold, after the team had qualified in the third place out of four.

‘’I had to fight hard. We had talked and decided that come what may, we will keep fighting till the end, without losing hope’’, said Manisha, who is trained by Olympian Mansher Singh.

The results:

Under-21 women: 25m sports pistol: 1. Devanshi Rana 24 (567); 2. Anjali Choudhary 23 (567); 3. Abhidnya Patil 20 (579).

Under-21 Mixed air rifle: 1. West Bengal (Mehuli Ghosh, Abhinav Shaw) 501.7 (831.7); 2. Rajasthan (Divyansh Singh Panwar, Manini Kaushik) 496.1 (830.1); 3. Madhya Pradesh (Shreya Agrawal, Harsh*t Binjwa) 433.6 (832.0).

Under21 Mixed trap: 1. Madhya Pradesh (Manisha Keer, Anwer Hassan Khan) 35 (127); 2. Delhi (Vrishankaditya Parmar, Kirti Gupta) 32 (131); 3. Maharashtra (Ashutosh Murkute, Sharayu Dalvi) 27 (114).