Saurabh Chaudhary bags ISSF World Cup gold medal, Esha Singh settles for silver in her World Cup debut

Indian shooting sensation Saurabh Chaudhary adds more feathers to his cap by bagging the gold medal in the men’s 10m air pistol event. His gold medal opened the country’s account in the first ISSF World Cup of the year 2022 held in Cairo.

The Asian Games gold medallist showed great resolve to shoot a 16 pointer in the gold medal contest as he finished above Germany’s Michael Schwald. The bronze medal in the event was won by Russian shooter Artem Chernousov. Chernousov’s country flag was removed amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Saurabh who featured in the Tokyo Olympics last year and has bagged a gold medal at the Youth Olympics was third in the men’s 10m air pistol qualification stage with a total of 584 points. He made it through to the finals as the eight best shooters qualify for the final round.

However, on the day of the final, he was at the top of his game as he finished the relay 1 with a score of 38. The score handed him the opportunity to reach the medal match, contested by the four best shooters. There he again came out on top with a score of 42.5.

Another Indian star Esha Singh who came up through the ranks at the Gagan Narang Gun for Glory academy bagged a silver medal at the ISSF World Cup i Cairo. The 17-year-old shooter finished ahead of Tokyo Olympics silver medalist Antoaneta Kostadinova on her way to a medal on her World Cup debut.

Esha lost the finals 16-6 against Korakaki in the Gold medal round as he had to settle for the Silver medal. She earlier topped the semifinals stage with a score of 41.5 and made her way to the medal round where again she scored 35.5 points whereas Korakaki shot 37 points. Earlier in the semifinals aswell Esha was first among the four shooters whereas Vitalina Batasarashkina who won the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics last year got eliminated after finishing fourth in the round.

Over 500 shooters from 60 nations are taking part in the Cairo World Cup which has 20 medal sets on offer. India at the moment are jointly topping the medal charts along with France and Italy with a gold medal each.