Manu Bhaker, Om Prakash Mitharval finish fourth in Mixed Team Pistol at Changwon World Cup

India recorded their third fourth-place finish in the year’s second International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun stage in Changwon, Korea, when Manu Bhaker and Om Prakash Mitharval finished outside the medal places in the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team event on day five of competitions.

The pair had earlier shot a qualification world record in the event, shooting a combined 778 to claim the record by a point from the German couple Christian and Sandra Reitz, who won Silver after qualifying in fifth place.

The Chinese pair of Xiaojing Ji and Jiayu Wu won Gold in the event with a world record score of 487.7 in the finals. Serbia’s Damir Mikec and Zorana Arunovic won Bronze.

Eight Indians have so far reached seven finals at the Changwon International Shooting centre, including in two team events, but so far only Shahzar Rizvi has won a Silver in the Men’s 10m Air Pistol. This will be the same range where the World Championships, the first Olympic quota competition for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, will be held in four months time.

In the first medal event of the day, India’s Sanjeev Rajput made it to the finals of the Men’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions (3P) event to finished eighth eventually. He was never in the groove in the finals and was the first to bow out of the 45-shot medal round won by Rio Olympics Silver medalist Sergey Kamenskiy of Russia. Sanjeev had earlier shot a solid 1178 to qualify in sixth place among eight finalists.

Two other Indians in the Men’s 3P among the 76 strong qualification round line-up, namely youngsters Akhil Sheoran and Swapnil Kusale, shot 1172 and 1171 to finish 17th and 24th respectively.

Also, in the Mixed Team Pistol, the Indian pair of Heena Sidhu and Shahzar Rizvi finished 19th in qualification with a score of 762.

There are three more of the 15 finals left in the competition.