23 March,2023 07:49 AM IST | Bhopal | PTI
India’s Sarabjot Singh is flanked by Ruslan Lunev (left) of Azerbaijan and Varun Tomar (right) on the podium
India's Sarabjot Singh won the men's air pistol gold in the ISSF Pistol/Rifle World Cup here to open the host country's medal account on the first day of competitions on Wednesday. It was double delight for India as teenage shooter Varun Tomar also bagged a bronze.
Sarabjot, the 2021 junior world champion in the team and mixed team categories, defeated Azerbaijan's Ruslan Lunev 16-0 in the gold-medal match in the first final of the World Cup. The 21-year-old Sarabjot was in awesome form all through as he emerged leader at the end of the qualification round with 585 points. Sarabjot was hitting the bulls eye every time he took aim, with his scores of 98, 97, 99, 97, 97, 97 in the six qualification series suggesting he would be hard to beat.
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China's Liu Jinyao was a close second at 584. Six other shooters - Jason Solari (Switzerland, 583 points), Vladimir Svechinko (Uzbekistan, 582), Frederik Larsen (Denmark, 580), Zhang Jie (China, 580), Ruslan Lunev (Azerbaijan, 579) and Varun Tomar (India, 579) - completed the list of eight marksmen who made it to the ranking round. In the ranking, or elimination round, Sarabjot continued to excel, while 19-year-old Varun, after qualifying eighth and last, began his superb recovery.
At the end of the ranking round, Sarabjot (253.2 points) and Ruslan (251.9) were first and second respectively and both of them entered the gold-medal round high on confidence, while Varun scored 250.3 to settle for bronze.
However, in the battle for the top podium place, the Azerbaijan shooter proved to be absolutely no match for Sarabjot. The gold-medal match was a race to 16 points and Sarabjot was simply unstoppable, winning 16-0.
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