Tomar strikes gold in Cairo

PTI

Cairo, February 22

Olympian Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar claimed the gold medal in the men’s individual 50m rifle 3 positions event at the ISSF World Cup here today as India continued their dominance in the tournament.

This was India’s sixth medal, and fourth gold, in the tournament as the country strengthened its position at the top of the medals tally.

The 22-year-old Tomar, who had also won a gold

in the Changwon World Cup last year, won 16-6 in the gold medal contest against Austria’s Alexander Schmirl.

Tomar was placed second in the ranking round with a total score of 406.4, while Schmirl was at the top with 407.9. Earlier, the Indian had topped the qualification round after aggregating 588 over the three stages of kneeling, prone and standing. Akhil Sheoran, who was second in the qualification with 587, finished seventh.

“I had not performed well twice earlier at this range so this time I was determined to go back with a medal,” Tomar said. Despite a slow start in the ranking round, Tomar was “confident” of bouncing back. “It did not affect me much. I was very determined and confident that I could always come back in my favourite standing position and that’s what happened,” he said.

After dominating the qualification round, the Indian duo began slowly in the ranking round with Tomar sixth and Sheoran eighth after the first five kneeling position shots.

After the end of the allocated 10 shots in the prone position, both moved up with Sheoran in second and Tomar in fifth. After the first five standing position shots, Tomar got up to second, just 0.5 behind Schmirl.

Sheoran was down to fifth and eventually bowed out in seventh place after 30 shots. After 40 shots, both the Austrian and the Indian held on to the top two positions. In the gold medal clash, Tomar took the first series. It remained tight with the scores reading 4-4 and then 6-6 before the Indian broke away with some sensational shooting. A timeout taken by the Austrian when trailing 6-12 did nothing to break Tomar’s momentum.

In the day’s first medal event, Rhythm Sangwan could not make the medal round in the women’s 25m pistol event.