India’s top Skeet shooter Mairaj Ahmad Khan, came up with a resounding performance at the season-ending International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Finals for Shotgun being held in Rome, Italy, when he narrowly missed a medal in the Men’s Skeet event to finish fourth.
On competition day two, Azmy Mehelba of Egypt got the better of Mairaj in the Bronze medal match 15-14. The Gold went to Nikolay Teplyy of Russia, while Mikola Milchev of the Ukraine won the Silver in an event where both the Rio Olympic champion Gabriele Rossetti of Italy and Bronze medalist Abdullah Alrashidi of Kuwait participating under the independent Olympic flag, were humbled.
Mairaj qualified for the six-man semi-final competition stage after shooting 118 in qualifying. He then hit 15 of the designated 16 targets to be tied with four others and a chance to qualify for the Gold medal match.
In the shoot-off that followed, while Azmy lost out early to qualify for the Bronze medal match, Mairaj fought tooth and nail with Nikolay and Mikola before missing the 12th target which the Gold-Silver duo did not. In the Bronze medal match, Azmy missed only one target while Mairaj missed two to settle for fourth.
Mairaj Ahmad Khan has had a good year, winning Silver at the Rio World Cup earlier this year, before finishing 9th at the Rio Olympics and now this performance in a grouping of premiere Skeet shooters of the world.
