New Delhi: Jitu Rai and Heena Sidhu gave India a first gold medal of the ISSF World Cup Final, taking top honours in the 10m air pistol mixed team event on the opening day of competition here on Tuesday. The mixed team events have been granted medal status at an ISSF World Cup Final for the first time. Mixed competitions were organised as test events in the World Cups held earlier this year and will be making their Olympic debut at the Tokyo 2020 Games. Jitu and Heena shot 483.4 points after 48 shots in the final round to finish on top after beginning with a 2.5-point disadvantage from the lead after the first series of five shots.
France’s Florian Fouquet and Celine Goberville took silver with 481.1. The bronze went to Yang Wei and Cai Xiaoxue of China with 418.2. Jitu shot 10.9s on his 15th and 17th individual shots, smoothening the path to victory. It was the Indian pair’s third gold in the event this year, having won both the test events (Grand Prix status) at two earlier World Cup stages in New Delhi and Gabala. It was Heena’s second WCF gold medal after the individual women’s 10m air pistol event in 2013 and Jitu’s second medal at the competition, the first being silver in the individual men’s 50m pistol last year.
In the 10m mixed air rifle event, Deepak Kumar and Meghana Sajjanar finished fourth at the Dr Karni Singh ranges after a two-shot penalty for shooting in the wrong sequence. Rai will also participate in the 10m free pistol and 50m pistol events. In the mixed team trap, Spain’s Antonio Bailon and Beatrice Martinez won the gold with 42 out of 50 in the final round, ahead of Italy’s Giovanni Pellielo and Jessica Rossi (40). USA’s Derrek Haldeman and Ashley Carroll claimed bronze (31).
“It feels great to win here in front of our people, even if this puts a little extra pressure on us. There were high expectations and a lot of eyes were looking at me and Jitu for this final, that’s why we trained a lot together in the last few days,” Heena said. “We like this format, it’s a bit longer than the other ones but we definitely like it,” Rai said.
