Arya-Arjun pair strikes gold, India end Munich World Cup on a high

Hindustan Times

a day ago

New Delhi: A remarkably nerveless performance from Arya Borse and Arjun Babuta meant India got the better of China in the gold medal match of the 10m air rifle mixed team event on the final day of the shooting World Cup in Munich.
Borse-Babuta got the better of China's Wang Zifei and Sheng Lihao 17-7 after the latter had topped the qualification in a 58-team field. Sheng, a double gold medallist at last year's Paris Olympics and current world No.1, shot 317.7 while 18-year-old Wang, a 2024 world champion, hit 318.2, which remained the highest individual tally in the final.
Babuta, who agonisingly finished fourth in Paris, also logged 317.7, while Borse, fresh from twin mixed team silver medals at Buenos Aires and Lima where she partnered Rudrankksh Patil, shot 317.5. The Indians' combined tally of 635.2 was 0.7 points shy of the Chinese total, which was a qualification world record.
In the final, Borse began with a 9.8 to hand the Chinese pair an early lead but the Indians found rhythm soon after. For the next seven series of single shots, they had only one shot below 10.5 (and that too was a creditable 10.2) to gallop to a decisive 13-3 advantage.
The Chinese pair won the next two series in the race to 16, but Borse and Babuta responded with high 10s to get to the match point.
In the final and 12th series, while Babuta cancelled out Sheng with an identical 10.1, Borse outshot Wang to give India a fine win. The bronze medal went to Norway's Jeanette Hegg Duestad and Jon-Hermann Hegg, who edged out USA's Sagen Maddalena and Peter Matthew Fiori 16-14.
The second Indian pair in the event, Elavenil Valarivan and Kiran Ankush Jadhav, tallied 631.8 to finish sixth overall.
Later, Indian shooters failed to advance to the medal matches in the 10m air pistol mixed team event with Manu Bhaker- Aditya Malra hitting 577 to finish sixth in the qualifiers. Suruchi Singh and Varun Tomar (576) ended 10th.
Saturday's gold was India's second in the competition, coming a day after Suruchi Phogat completed a golden hat-trick in World Cups, in the 10m air pistol.
With four medals, India finished overall third, behind China (6 medals) and Norway (4 medals). Sift Kaur Samra and Elavenil Valarivan took bronze in the 50m 3 Positions and 10m air rifle events respectively.