Teenage prodigy Saurabh Chaudhray looks unstoppable. After shooting an unexpected gold in the 10m air pistol at the recent Asian Games, the 16-year-old school student was red hot form on Thursday as he shattered his own world record in the same event on way to gold at the 52nd World Championship in Changwon, Korea.
Saurabh Chaudhary shot brilliantly throughout the day, tallying 581 to qualify for the final in third spot and then shot a classy 245.5 in the final to clinch the gold. This score toppled his own junior world record score of 243.7, achieved at the Junior World Cup in June.
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The boy from Kalina village in Meerut had just 16 days ago stunned the field at the Asian Games in Indonesia. Interestingly, Saurabh beat Korea’s Lim Hojin, the same rival whom he had beaten at the Junior World Cup in Suhl Germany. Lim Hojin won silver with an effort of 243.1, a clear 2.4 points behind the in-form Indian.
Overall, India added five medals on Day Five of World Championship on Thursday. Abhishek Verma in the senior men’s 10m pistol shot a quality qualification round of 583 but missed a medal or a Tokyo 2020 quota place on offer, finishing eighth in the final.
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India also picked up two more medals from the event. Saurabh’s teammate Arjun Singh Cheema, crowned the world junior 50m pistol champion a few days ago, settled for bronze with a score of 218.0. Saurabh and Arjun also combined with Anmol Jain to clinch the team silver with an effort of 1730, behind the gold medal winning Korean team by two points. Korea’s effort was also a junior team world record.
India did not return empty handed from the men’s 10m air pistol though, with the team of Abhishek Verma, Om Prakash Mitharval and Shahzar Rizvi pocketing the team silver with a combined score of 1738. Abhishek qualified in third place for the eight-man individual final and shot 118 in the medal round eventually.
India also picked up a silver medal in the junior men’s trap team competition, with Aman Ali Elahi, Vivaan Kapoor and Manavaditya Singh Rathore shooting a combined score of 348 to finish second behind Australia. Aman shot the best among the trio, his 118 in qualification taking him to the six-man final. He ended up sixth. Aman had to also overcome a four-man shoot-off to get to the final.
India ended Day Five with 14 medals, which includes four gold, six silver and four bronze medals. They lie in third position in the medals tally behind Korea and Russia.
