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ISSF World Championship: Ankur Mittal traps gold, team bags bronze

While Yang missed the fourth shot, Mittal managed to hit the clay on all the four shots to climb on top of the podium.

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(L-R) Ankur Mittal, Shardul Vihaan, Md Asab display team bronze in double trap won in Changwon on Saturday. Mittal also shows his individual gold
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Ankur Mittal claimed his career’s biggest victory by beating China’s Yiyang Yang for a gold in men’s double trap at ISSF World Championship in Changwon, South Korea, on Saturday.

The 26-year-old Mittal became the first Indian to win the double trap gold at the WC after scoring 140 out of 150 to set up a shoot-off against Yang and Slovakia’s Hubert Andrzej. And then, he emerged victorious with a score of 4-3 against the fancied Chinese competitor. The Slovakian had to settle for the bronze after missing his second shoot-off clay target in the shoot-off.

While Yang missed the fourth shot, Mittal managed to hit the clay on all the four shots to climb on top of the podium.

Interestingly, Mittal has become only the second Indian after Manavjit Singh Sandhu to win gold in a shotgun event at the World Championship. The 2017 silver medallist at the World Championships has, thus, become India’s only fifth shooter to win gold at the WC. Abhinav Bindra, Sandhu, Tejaswini Sawant and Om Mitharval are the earlier names in this list.

The day also saw Mittal winning team bronze with a tally of 409 along with teammates Mohammed Asab and Shardul Vihaan. The trio finished only one point behind second-placed China while the gold was clinched by Italy with a tally of 411.

After winning the silver at WC hosted by India in 2017, Mittal went on to claim gold at the Asian Championships. He then followed up by another gold at the Acapulco World Cup to assure himself of qualification for the Moscow World Cup, where he won shotgun silver.

It was his stellar performance in 2017 that helped him claim the world No. 1 ranking in the double trap. But with double trap event no longer a part of the Olympics, the 2018 CWG bronze winner, Mittal has no chance to replicate the heroics of Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore’s silver medal at Athens in 2004.

Anjum, Manu disappoint

In the other events on Saturday, two Indian women shooters – Anjum Moudgil and Manu Bhaker – missed qualifying for the final of their respective events by narrow margins.

Anjum, who has already won 10m air rifle silver at the ongoing World Championships along with 2020 Tokyo Olympics quota place for India, finished ninth by shooting 1170 in the women’s 50m rifle 3 positions qualifying round. With only top eight making it to the finals, Moudgil lost out to Swiss Nina Christen narrowly. Nina had 66 inner 10 shots as compared to Anjum’s 56 inner 10s.

In the 25m women’s pistol, Bhaker tallied 584 in qualification to finish 10th. At the end of the second rapid fire qualification round, four shooters – Singapore’s Xiu Hong Teh, Qatar’s Aldana Saad Almubarak, Greece’s Olympic and world champion in the 10m air pistol Anna Korakaki and Manu, were tied at the same score. But Xiu and Almubarak sailed through as their tally of 22 and 21 inner 10s were better than Anna’s 19 and Manu’s 16.

At the end of Day 7, India are placed third behind hosts Korea with a haul of 23 medals — 9 gold, 7 silver and 7 bronze and China – 7 gold, 9 silver, 4 bronze for a total of 20 medals.

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