World champion Sergiy Kamenskiy of Russia lent an elegant touch of class to take the men’s air rifle gold ahead of the Chinese in the shooting World Cup at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Monday.
Brilliance is often a misused word but it fitted nicely for World No. 1 Kamenskiy, the Rio Olympics silver medallist, as he was close to perfection in the climax to clinch the gold 2.4 points ahead of Chinese Liu Yunkun, the qualification topper.
No catching up
Only after taking a 2.9 point lead did the Russian relax a bit, as he delivered a 9.8 on the penultimate shot. There was no catching up, but Liu and fourth-placed Martin Strempfl of Austria had the satisfaction of securing Olympic quota places.
Third-placed Chinese Hui Zicheng along with Kamenskiy had won the quota in the World Championship last year.
In fact, Kamenskiy had missed the gold by 0.1 point in the rifle 3-position event on Sunday, which saw third-placed Marco De Nicolo of Italy take the second quota place behind champion Istvan Peni of Hungary.
The Chinese have already collected four quota places in the current World Cup, to take their tally to 14. India has taken its collection to three, with the quota won by Saurabh Chaudhary in men’s air pistol.
Hungary has won two so far here, while Italy, Serbia and Austria have won one each. Two quota places each are available in women’s rifle 3-position and air pistol events on Tuesday.
As announced, the rapid fire pistol quota places have been held back to be distributed in the next World Cups, on the direction of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The Indian challenge fell short in men’s air rifle, as the young Divyansh Singh Panwar shot 627.2 and missed the final by 1.2 points. Ravi Kumar was 0.2 points further away.
It was the first competition for Ravi after he had undergone surgery following an injection infection on his hip recently. He missed going for competitive preparation in Europe and was forced to take bed rest for about 20 days, before resuming shooting at the preparatory camp.
Anish in thrd spot
In men’s 25m rapid fire pistol, Commonwealth Games gold medallist Anish Bhanwala shot 294 out of 300 in the precision phase, to be in third place. The rapid fire section will be shot on Tuesday, followed by the final for the top six.
In women’s 50m rifle elimination phase, former World Champion Tejaswini Sawant struggled to 1146 and failed to make the cut. Sunithi Chauhan (1168) and Gaayathri Nithyanandam (1166) made it to the qualification phase.
In the MQS section, Kajal Saini (1165) and World record holder Anjum Moudgil (1164) put up a decent performance.
The results:
10m air rifle: Men: 1. Sergiy Kamenskiy (Rus) 249.4 (628.8); 2. Liu Yukun (Chn) 247.0 (630.1); 3. Hui Zicheng (Chn) 225.9 (629.3); 12. Divyansh Singh Panwar 627.2; 14. Ravi Kumar 627.0; 34. Deepak Kumar 624.3. MQS: Pankaj Kumar 620.9.