India, China in race for top position in junior shooting worlds

India were locked in a fight for the top position with toppers China on the third day of the ISSF Junior World Championships, with four golds in their kitty in Changwon, Korea on Tuesday. China has four gold medals, five and three bronze, while India has won four gold, three and three bronze medals.

China bagged gold in the women's 10m air rifle team event with a junior world record tally of 1892 by the trio of Wang Zifei, Fan Xinyi & Zhang Jiale. India won silver in the event as Gautami Bhanot, Sonam Maskar and Swati Chowdhury tallied 1886.8. Norway won bronze.

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Earlier in the day, Parth Mane, Abhinav Shaw and Dhanush Srikanth combined in the men's 10m air rifle team event to win India's only gold of the day. The squad also picked up a silver through Raiza Dhillon in the women's skeet and a bronze through Umamahesh Madineni in the men's 10m air rifle individual competition.

There are still six more competition days left in the tournament.

The trio of Parth, Abhinav and Dhanush shot a combined total of 1886.7 in the men's 10m air rifle team event, to leave China behind in second place, whose shooters managed a total of 1883.5.

Korea won bronze.

This was also Abhinav's second gold of the tournament, given he had combined with Gautami Bhanot on Monday to win the 10m air rifle mixed team competition.

In the men's 10m air rifle individual competition, besides Umamahesh, Abhinav and Dhanush also made the final top eight.

Abhinav, in fact, topped the 64-strong field with a score of 631.4, while Dhanush was third with 629.9.

Umamahesh qualified in seventh position with a score of 627.9, but shot a brilliant final to claim bronze, ending after the 22nd shot with a tally of 229.0.

He was 0.6 behind silver winning Chinese Wang Honghao at that stage and did not shoot a single score in the 9s.

Romain Aufrere of France won gold.

Abhinav finished fourth, while Dhanush finished sixth.

In the women's 10m air rifle, Sonam Maskar was the only Indian finalist, finishing seventh eventually.

In the women's skeet, Raiza just about bagged the sixth and final qualifying spot with a score of 110 after five rounds.

She was, then, the slowest to start, missing four of her first seven targets, but came back brilliantly with 16 straight hits and missing just one of the next 27 targets to catch up with the leader.

In the final, she missed a double, but rallied brilliantly yet again to miss just one of the next 22 to tie with leader Miroslava Hockova of Slovakia at 51 hits a piece after the stipulated 60-shots.

In the resulting shoot-off, she missed her second target as Hockova struck both, for a deserving silver.

In the men's skeet, Harmehar Laly shot 119, to be the lone Indian finalist among six, but eventually had to settle for fifth position.