ISSF Shotgun World Cup: Indian shooters miss their target

Indian shooters – both men and women – failed to qualify for the Individual Skeet event final at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) Shotgun World Cup in Cairo, Egypt.

Gurjoat Khangura, in the men’s category, came the closest to making the cut at the Egyptian Shooting Club. After a disappointing 21 in his first qualifying round, Khangura rallied to 25, 24, 24 and 25 in the next four to end with a total of 119 after five rounds to finish 10th.

Five shooters with scores of 121 automatically qualified for the final while the sixth slot was decided by a shoot-off between the four shooters who ended on 120. Khangura, hence, missed joining the shoot-off by just a single point.

Ukrainian Mikola Milchev, an Olympic gold medallist from Sydney 2000, won the shoot-off to bag the sixth and final qualifying spot and eventually went on to win the competition.

Khangura’s Indian men’s colleagues, Mairaj Ahmed Khan (24, 24, 22, 19, 24) and Angad Vir Singh Bajwa (25, 22, 20, 24, 22), shot identical scores of 113, to finish in the 28th and 30th spots, respectively.

Both Mairaj and Angad are Tokyo Olympics quota winners for India and had a disappointing couple of days at office.

In the women’s Skeet competition, Parinaaz Dhaliwal was the best Indian finisher, shooting 110 for a 16th place finish.

Dhaliwal’s peer Ganemat Sekhon shot 108 to finish 23rd while Karttiki Singh Shaktawat was a spot behind in 24th with a score of 107.

The women’s skeet event was won by Slovakia’s Danka Bartekova, who was also the top qualifier with a score of 119. She shot 55 in the finals to win the gold medal.

The skeet team final at the ISSF Shotgun World Cup, for both men and women, will be held on Friday.