New Delhi, July 18 (SocialNews.XYZ) Two-time Olympian and India's shining light in Skeet shooting, Mairaj Ahmad Khan, won the country's first ever individual gold in the event, shooting 37 hits out of a possible 40 in the final of ISSF World Cup Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun at Changwon, Korea on Monday.
The Khurja top gun, first shot 119/125 over two days of qualifying in the men's Skeet and then came through a five-way shoot-off en-route to gold.
His efforts helped India stay on top of the medal standings with five gold, five silver and three bronze medals with two more days of competitions left. India also won a bronze today with the 50m Rifle 3 Positions (3P) women's team of Anjum Moudgil, Sift Kaur Samra and Ashi Chouksey, winning their bronze medal match up 16-06 against Austria.
But the day undoubtedly belonged to the seasoned Mairaj. After finishing with 119, he found himself vying for two final qualification spots along with four others, among them being two-time Olympic medallist Abdullah Al Rashidi of Kuwait. When Shotaro Toguchi of Japan missed his eighth shoot-off shot, he was assured of top-eight spot.
In the ranking round he was up against German Sven Korte, Korean Minki Cho and Cypriot Nicolas Vasilou for another round of 30-targets. He topped the round with 27 hits as Sven followed him to the medal round with 25-hits.
In the 40-shot medal round, Mairaj missed just three targets for 37-hits, to clinch the deal from Korean Minsu Kim who shot down 36-targets.
In other action, Vijayveer Sidhu in the Men's 25m Rapid Fire Pistol reached the ranking round but did not make the medal rounds while Anish and Sameer could not cross the first hurdle in the event. Vijayveer shot 584 in qualifying to finish sixth while Anish shot 582 for 12th spot and Sameer 566 for 30th position. Mufaddal Deesawala finished 23rd in the Women's Skeet shooting a total of 108.
Source: IANS
About Gopi
Gopi Adusumilli is a Programmer. He is the editor of SocialNews.XYZ and President of AGK Fire Inc.
He enjoys designing websites, developing mobile applications and publishing news articles on current events from various authenticated news sources.
When it comes to writing he likes to write about current world politics and Indian Movies. His future plans include developing SocialNews.XYZ into a News website that has no bias or judgment towards any.
He can be reached at gopi@socialnews.xyz