Indian shooter Anish Bhanwala finished a disappointing fifthin the men’s 25 metre rapid fire pistol category at the ISSF World Cup, here onTuesday. Olympic Champion Christian Reitz of Germany won the title.
The 16-year-old had registered a career best and nationalrecord score of 588 to qualify for the final.
In the six-man final, Bhanwala had a steady start beforelosing his way. Anish was fourth after three hits each in the opening twoseries. He had a perfect five in the next series that propelled him to third.
The deafening applause perhaps got to him as he could onlymanage one hit in the next series to go down to the bottom two. But he survivedby beating Christian Bessaguet of France in the elimination shoot-off.
The Frenchman hit three shots on target and Anish four.Battling for survival, the teenager had another poor show in the next series ashe could only hit the target twice.
Reitz showed the Delhi crowd why he is regarded so highly inthe world of shooting, missing just five targets out of a possible 40 in thefinal to put it across the reigning world champion and world number one LinJunmin of China 35-31.
Former world champion Kim Junhong of South Korea took thebronze medal with a score of 22.
Earlier, star Indian shooters Manu Bhaker and Heena Sidhufailed to qualify for the women’s 10 metre air pistol final. Manu finished atthe 10th spot with 573 points in the relay 1 while Heena was placed 14th with571.
China won a maximum of five of the 14 Tokyo 2020 Olympicquota places available at the year’s first ISSF World Cup, as Hungary lead themedal tally with three gold medals.
Meanwhile, Hungary’s Veronica Major won a double gold on theday four of the competition.
Besides Reitz and Veronica in the Women’s 10m Air Pistol,World number six Nina Christen of Switzerland was the other winner on the day,topping the Women’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions event and taking home a TokyoOlympics quota for her nation.
In the women’s 10m Air Pistol, Veronica, who won gold in theWomen’s 25m Pistol a day earlier, did an encore, beating Wu Chai Ying of ChineseTaipei, who got Silver. Veronica shot 245.1 in the final, while Wu shot 238.4.South Korea’s Kim Bomi took bronze with a score of 218.3.
Nina Christen of Switzerland shot 457.1 in the Women’s 50mRifle 3 Positions final to win gold. The silver medal and the second quotaplace in the event went to Shi Mengyao of China who shot 456.6 whileKazakhstan’s Korol Yelizaveta picked up the bronze with a score of 445.7
N. Gaayathri of India shot 1,163 to finish at the 36thplace, while debutant Sunidhi Chauhan shot 1,156 to end at the 49th position.