IMAGE: (Left to right) India’s Swapnil Kusale, who won the silver medal, with gold medallist Serhiy Kulish of Ukraine and bronze medal winner Aleksi Leppa of Finland. Photograph: NRAI
India’s shooter Swapnil Kusale won a silver medal in the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions (3P) event at the ISSF World Cup in Baku, Azerbaijan on Thursday, giving the country its second medal of the competition.
The 26-year-old Swapnil went down 10-16 to Rio Olympics silver winner Serhiy Kulish of Ukraine in the gold medal match. This was Swapnil’s first individual ISSF World Cup stage medal.
The 12-member Indian rifle squad now has one gold and one silver, moving up to fifth on the medal table from overnight ninth.
Swapnil played a tremendous 3P match over two days of intense competition in a world class field.
He first finished second to Kulish in the top-eight ranking round earlier on Thursday, before going down to the Ukranian champion again in the gold medal match.
Kulish shot 411 in the ranking round to Swapnil’s 409.1 as Finland’s Aleksi Leppa took the bronze with 407.8.
The top two therefore finished in the same order right from the qualification rounds on Wednesday.
In the final, Swapnil did put up a fight but the Ukranian finished strong to put the issue beyond the Indian.
Kulish shot four high 10s in his last five shots of the final to Swapnil’s three low 10s and two 9s.
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