Sift wins India's first gold at Argentina Shooting World Cup, Esha bags silver

New Delhi: Indian shooter Sift Kaur Samra produced a sensational come-from-behind performance to win her first individual ISSF World Cup gold in the women's 50m rifle 3-positions final, while Esha Singh bagged a second individual World Cup silver in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The 23-year-old Sift from Faridkot thus earned India its first gold of the season-opening World Cup stage event at the Tiro Federal Argentino de Buenos Aires shooting range late on Friday.

The world record holder was a huge 7.2 points behind Anita Mangold of Germany after 15-shots in the first Kneeling position. However, she staged a dream comeback in the second Prone and final Standing positions to win by a canter in the end.

Sift finished with 458.6 points at the end of the 45-shot final, while Mangold ended 3.3 points behind on 455.3.

Junior World Championship medallist Arina Altukhova of Kazakhstan was third, bowing out after the 44th shot with a tally of 445.9.

India now have three medals -- a gold, a silver and a bronze won earlier in the men's 3P by Chain Singh -- in the competition.

Sensational Sift

Sift did extremely well to qualify in top spot with a strong 590, when the likes of reigning Olympic champion Chiara Leone and former Olympic champion Nina Christen, both from Switzerland, could not make the top eight.

A host of Olympic medallists like Alexandria Le of Kazakhstan and Mary Tucker of the US, also could not cross the qualifying hurdle.

Competing in a stellar field, Sift could not penetrate the 10-ring to begin with and ended the Kneeling position almost out of reckoning. She then found her rhythm in her favourite Prone position and by the end of it, brought the gap down with the leader, now Nele Stark, to about 4.3, but still remained in eighth place.

A classy 52.3 in the first series of five Standing shots when all struggled, saw her shoot-up to joint third and she never looked back from there.

A steady second series of 51.2 saw her take the lead for the first time and as the leaderboard shuffled furiously below her, she finished with scores of 10.5, 10.3, 10.5,10.0 and 9.7 for a clinical performance.

Esha bags silver

Air Pistol Mixed Team world champion Esha tallied 35 in the women's 25m pistol final to finish behind China's Sun Yujie, who won gold with 38 hits after the 10th and final five-shot series.

Sun's compatriot Feng Sixuan won bronze. Double Olympic medallist Manu Bhaker, who also made the final, finished sixth eventually.

Indian shooters had to first qualify for the final-eight early on Saturday morning, and Manu, who was fourth overnight, returned a fine 294 in the second rapid-fire round to qualify in third spot, with a total of 585.

The shooter who piped Manu to a third medal at the Paris Olympics, Hungarian Veronika Major, topped with 587.

Esha too shot exceedingly well, a 294 in rapid-fire giving her a total of 579, just enough to ensure two Indians in the final. Simranpreet Kaur Brar, the third Indian in contention, had a tough opening rapid-fire series to miss out with 576.

Manu was also the stronger at the start of the final, a perfect five in the third series, moving her up to the joint lead with the two Chinese Sun and Feng. Esha came into her own from the third series, a round of four hits moving her up to joint fourth from seventh.

What followed was simply stunning from the Hyderabad girl as she shot superbly in the the fifth, sixth and seventh series to surge to sole second, just one behind Sun.

As heavyweights like Tien Chia-Chen of Chinese Taipei, Doreen Vennekamp of Germany and Manu faltered, it was between Sun and Esha and the former finished stronger to claim a deserving gold. Feng overcame a three-way shoot-off to claim another podium for the Chinese.

Skeet challenge ends

India’s challenge in the men's and women's skeet competitions was snuffed out at the qualification stage. Raiza Dhillon shot 116 to finish 11th in women's skeet while Ganemat Sekhon (114) and Darshna Rathore (112) finished 14thand 17th respectively.

In the men's skeet. Anant Jeet Singh Naruka secured the best position among Indians when he finished 20th on a score of 116. Bhavtegh Gill was a spot below on the same score while Gurjoat Khangura finished 22nd with a tally of 115.