ISSF World Cup Baku: Anjum Moudgil settles for silver as India move up to third in standings
The trio of Swapnil Kusale, Deepak Kumar and Goldie Gurjar also won a silver medal in the men’s rifle 3 positions team event.
India picked up medals in both the individual men’s and women’s 50m rifle 3 positions (3P) events, with Anjum Moudgil bagging silver in the women’s 3P at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Friday.
Swapnil Kusale had also finished second in the men’s event on Thursday. Anjum went down 12-16 in the gold medal match to Denmark’s Rikke Maeng Ibsen.
The men’s rifle 3 positions team comprising Swapnil Kusale, Olympian Deepak Kumar and Goldie Gurjar also went on to win a silver in the team competition. It gave India a tally of one gold and three silver medals in the ISSF World Cup in Baku and moved them up to third on the medals tally, behind Korea and Serbia.
India fielded a 12-member rifle squad in the Baku World Cup.
Anjum Moudgil, an Olympian and a world championship silver medallist, had qualified on Thursday for the top-eight ranking round with a score of 587 out of 600 among 60 shooters, which gave her fourth place. On Friday, she finished second to Ibsen in stage two with a 406.5 to the Norwegians 411.4.
She then put up a strong challenge in the final but could not put it across the Dane on the day. This is her second individual ISSF World Cup silver in the event.
There was heartbreak for the other two Indian women in the fray though as Ayushi Podder finished 16th with a 585, just one point away from the final top-eight mark and Ashi Chouksey ended 20th with a score of 584.
It was the turn of the Indian men’s 3P team next and they too came through two rounds of qualifying to make it to the gold medal encounter, before going down 7-17 to Croatia in the final. Ukraine picked up the bronze. A total of 14 teams competed.
The women’s rifle 3 positions team comprising Anjum Moudgil and Ayushi Podder also won their first qualifying round with an aggregate of 1316 to make it to stage two, however, could not get into medal reckoning in the end. They finished sixth in the ranking round with a score of 867, falling short of the medal rounds by a point.
Although the ISSF World Cup features rifle, pistol and shotgun events, the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) has only sent rifle shooters for the event.
India’s campaign at the Baku meet will end on Saturday with the 3P mixed team event.