India men's skeet, air rifle shooters falter at Worlds

A day after their fellow shooters won a gold medal, India capped a disappointing show in the men's skeet and 10m air rifle categories of the ISSF World Championship in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Saturday.

The skeet team, comprising Angad Vir Bajwa (121), Anant Jeet Singh Naruka (120), and Gurjoat Khangura (115), finished in 14th place with an overall score of 356 after five rounds of qualification spread across two days.

This came a day after their fellowmates, Shiva Narwal and Esha Singh, clinched the gold in the 10m air pistol mixed team event.

Team USA's Vincent Hancock (125), Christian Elliott (123) and Dustan Taylor (121) claimed the team gold with an incredible 369, which was 13 shots ahead of the Indians.

Greece bagged the silver medal with an aggregate of 366, while shotgun powerhouse Italy was a close third with a total of 365.

In the individual category too, where the scores from the five rounds of 25 shots each are counted towards qualifying for the six-shooter finals, none of the three Indians were placed in the top-25.

Bajwa (121) finished 29th, while Anant Jeet (120) was 44th and Gurjoat (115) was 95th.

India's lacklustre performance continued in 10m air rifle as well where all three shooters -- Divyansh Singh Panwar, Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar and Hriday Hazarika -- failed to fire.

Together, they managed to aggregate 1878.4 points to finish 10th in the team category. While Divyansh scored 627.5, Aishwary and Hridaya notched up 627.3 and 623.6.

China took the gold medal with a world record score 1893.3, followed by the Czech Republic (1884.3) and Croatia (1883.5).

In the individual category too, Divyansh finished a distant 28th in the qualification round, while Aishwary and Hriday were 33rd and 68th respectively. Only the top-eight shooters qualify for the finals.

Victor Lindgren of Sweden won the gold medal with 251.3 in the finals, while China's Yang Haoran, the multiple-time world champion and winner of the 10m air rifle mixed team gold at the Tokyo Olympics, had to settle for silver with a score of 250.6.

Czech Republic's Frantisek Smetana took the bronze with a score of 227.5.

India, after three days of action, are yet to clinch a single 2024 Paris Olympic quota place at the event, though they have won a gold and a bronze medal in team events.

An Olympic quota place can only be secured in individual category.

China, with six gold, one silver and two bronze medals, are on top, while India are placed third.