Kolhapur-born shooter clinches silver in women's 10m air rifle
NEW DELHI: Sonam Maskar has participated in two senior international tournaments since January this year. She already has three silver medals.
On the first day of competition in the ISSF World Cup Finals, the Kolhapur girl gave the hosts something to smile about as she clinched silver in women's 10m air rifle event at Dr Karni Singh shooting ranges here on Tuesday.
Sonam, 22, who had earlier competed in the Cairo World Cup, had won silver medals in 10m air rifle individual and mixed team events.
On Tuesday, playing in her maiden WC Finals, Sonam held her nerve in a strong field that included Paris Olympics champion Huang Yu tin of China, who again clinched the top spot here.
Sonam qualified for the final after shooting 632.1 in the qualification round along with Tilottama Sen (628.9). In the 8-woman final, Sonam shot consistently and stayed at No. 4-5 position. She switched gears in the 19th and 20th shots, where she hit 10.7 and 10.9 respectively to climb to the second position.
Later, she didn't make any mistake and sealed the silver with the final score of 252.9. Tilottama finished sixth. The gold went to Yutin, who hit a World Record score of 254.5. She broke the record of her compatriot Jiayu Han's mark by 0.5 point set in May this y ear. Jiayu's another record of 636.3 in the qualification round was broken on Tuesday as Germany's Anna Janssen totalled 636.9.
A chess player during her school days, Mumbai-based Sonam switched to shooting in 2018, but had to put the sport on hold since she couldn't find a training facility in Mumbai. "I liked chess, but I didn't have proper coaches to train me. I wanted to try another sport, but I didn't want to play anything that required a lot of physical activity. I liked shooting as it matched my temperament," she said after her match.
In the men's 10m air rifle event, Arjun Babuta had to settle for the fifth-position despite leading the field till the 16th shot of the 24-shot final. Arjun was placed first till the 16th shot, but a 10 in the 17th shot followed by a 9.8 saw him drop to the fifth position and the Chandigarh shooter was eliminated from the final. Divyansh Singh Panwar finished eighth.
Paris Olympics participant Rhythm Sangwan, too, missed out on a medal after she hit an 8 in the 20th shot of the 10m air pistol final. Rhythm finished fourth with a score of 197.2. Another Indian, Surbhi Rao, finished fifth.
