A medal continued to elude the strong Indian shooting contingent in the elite ISSF World Cup Final with rifle exponents Hriday Hazarika and Elavenil Valarivan finishing seventh in their respective categories in Doha on Wednesday. (Sports News)
Young skeet shooter Ganemat Sekhon, however, kept the medal hopes alive by finishing second at the end of day one of qualification.
Hazarika shot 629.4 in the men's 10m air rifle qualification round to make it to the final placed eighth. He began the final with a superb 10.6 and aggregated 51.9 after the first five-shot series to be in fifth position.
His eighth shot was a brilliant 10.9 but poor scores on the fifth and sixth meant he would slip to seventh after 10 shots.
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Hazarika improved to sixth after his 12th shot but German Maximillian Ulbrich outgunned him on the 13th and 14th shots as the Indian bowed out. Zalan Pekler of Hungary won the gold medal.
World champion shooter Rudrankksh Patil could not make it to the eight-shooter final in the event, shooting a subdued 626.1 to finish 13th.
Tokyo Olympian Elavenil also took the eighth and final qualifying spot in women's 10m air rifle with a score of 630.8.
The 24-year-old from Tamil Nadu, who had won a World Cup Final gold in 2019, began the final with a solid 10.8, only to follow up with a 9.9 which pegged her back in a world-class field.
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After 10 shots, Elavenil was in elimination zone. However, Tokyo Olympics medallist Mary Tucker of the USA took the eighth place with a low 10 on the 12th as the Indian survived.
Elavenil, though, exited soon after, becoming the third Indian in two days to bow out in seventh place after the 14th shot. Poland's Aneta Stankiewicz won gold, while Zhiling Wang of China took silver.
Ramita Jindal and Mehuli Ghosh could not make it past the qualification round, finishing ninth and 10th with scores of 629.4 and 628.3 respectively.
In women's skeet, Ganemat began by shooting three identical rounds of 24/25 to be placed second on count-back to leader Assem Orynbay of Kazakhstan.
The duo was among four shooters on identical scores of 72, including skeet legend Kimberly Rhode of the US.
Prithviraj Tondaiman, in men's trap, had two rounds of 46 to begin with, and was outside the top six.
