The city of Lima, Peru, witnessed an extraordinary display of skill and precision as Indian shooters made a triumphant start to their International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) Junior World Championship Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun campaign. The young marksmen clinched two team golds in the men's and women's 10m air pistol events, catapulting India to the top of the medal tally at the end of the first day of competition.
The junior men's team, comprising Umesh Choudhary, Pradhyumn Singh, and Mukesh Nelavalli, were the first to put India on the scoreboard. They comfortably topped the men's team competition of the 10m air pistol with a combined score of 1726 points, a clear 10 points ahead of the second-placed Romanian team. Italy secured the bronze with a total of 1707 points.
Umesh Choudhary and Pradhyumn Singh also qualified for the individual finals, finishing third and fourth respectively in the qualification round. Choudhary shot a score of 580, while Singh was close behind with 578. However, despite their strong performances, they missed out on individual medals, finishing sixth and eighth respectively.
The individual gold was won by Luca Joldea of Romania, while Hsieh Hsiang-Chen of Chinese Taipei bagged the silver. Mukesh Nelavalli, the third member of the Indian team, finished ninth in the qualification round with a score of 574. Despite the strong team performance, the journey was not without its challenges. Choudhary, for instance, missed a potential individual gold after being penalized two points for reporting late for the final.
Following the men's event, it was the turn of the junior women's team to shine. The trio of Kanishka Dagar, Lakshita, and Anjali Chaudhary tallied a total of 1708 points to clinch the junior women's 10m air pistol team gold. They narrowly edged out Azerbaijan by a single point, while Ukraine secured the bronze, trailing by four points.
Kanishka Dagar also qualified for the individual final, finishing third with a score of 573. She was joined by another Indian shooter, Kanika, who also shot the same score but with fewer inner 10s, securing the fifth qualifying spot.
This achievement by the Indian shooters is reminiscent of the country's performance at the 2018 ISSF Junior World Cup in Sydney, where the Indian team topped the medal tally with a total of 24 medals, including nine golds. The current performance in Lima is a testament to the continued growth and development of shooting as a sport in India, and the promising future that lies ahead for these young marksmen.
In the final, Dagar finished eighth, while Kanika won the bronze with a score of 217.6, marking her first individual medal. The gold was won by Chen Yu-Chun of Chinese Taipei, while Slovakia's Manja Slak secured the silver. In the junior men's event, Parmod, the fourth Indian participant, finished 14th with a score of 572, while Gamberya Gowda shot 557 for a 42nd place finish in the junior men's event.
