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Parth Rakesh Mane was crowned junior world champion in the 10m air rifle, leading a dominant performance by India in the discipline, as their medal tally continued to surge at the end of competition day three of the on-going International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) Junior World Championship Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun, being held in the Peruvian capital of Lima.
Parth picked up a double gold, combining with Ajay Malik and Abhinav Shaw to win the team competition as well. India's third gold of the day came when Gautami Bhanot, Sambhavi Kshirsagar and Anoushka Thakur, also picked up the junior women's 10m air rifle team gold. The 16-year-old Parth Mane's effort was however the highlight of the day as the 16-year-old overcame a field oozing class with consummate ease to deliver a virtuoso performance. He shot 250.7 in the 24-shot final to pip reigning junior Asian champion Huang Liwanlin of China by 0.7. Braden Peiser of the USA took bronze. Paris Olympic silver medallist Victor Lindgren of Sweden was fourth while reigning double junior world champion Romain Aufrere was sixth. Parth's own compatriots, the in-form Ajay Malik and the seasoned-at-15 Abhinav Shaw finished fifth and seventh respectively. Ajay went down in the shoot-off to Lindgren to finish with 186.7 while Abhinav bowed out in seventh with 144.2. Earlier in the 62-strong qualification round, Ajay had come second with 628.8, Parth fourth (627.7) and Abhinav qualified sixth with 627.0 after 60 shots. Two other Indians in the fray Umamahesh Maddineni (625.5) and Talwar Singh (625.2) finished 13th and 14th respectively. That ensured that the trio of Parth, Ajay and Abhinav tallied a total of 1883.5 to easily overcome USA (1877.6) and Germany (1873.9) to win the team gold. Three Indians also made the junior women's air rifle final but missed out on individual medals. Gautami Bhanot shot extremely well to finish second in the 90-strong qualification field with a score of 634.7. China's Wang Zifei topped with a junior world record score of 635.7. Shambhavi Kshirsagar also shot well to finish fourth (632.6) and so did Ojasvi Thakur (631.4) to qualify in fifth place. Anoushka Thakur was 17th with 627.5 while Saumya Khedkar was 20th with 627.4. Gautami then finished fourth in the final going down to the bronze-winning US athlete by 0.2 after the 20th shot. She finished with a score of 209.3. Shambhavi (188.4) was fifth and Ojasvi (146.1) bowed out in seventh place. Gautami and Shambhavi however combined effectively with Anoushka Thakur to clinch the team competition, bossing USA with a junior world team record score of 1894.8. Norway was third. Indians also competed in the junior men's and women's skeet competition at the shotgun ranges however without much luck. Gurfateh Singh Sandhu finished 29th with a score of 112 in qualification while Bhavtegh Singh Gill also shot the same score in the junior men's skeet to finish 31st on countback. Harmehar Singh Lally was 44th with 107. Mansi Raghuwanshi in the junior women's skeet was the best-placed Indian in the shotgun. Her score of 109 gave her 8th place as she missed out on qualification by a point. Mufaddal Dessawala and Shivani Raikwar shot scores of 98 each to finish in the 30th and 31st positions respectively. India continue to lead the medal tally with five golds. (ANI)
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