Four-gold day sees India surge to the top at Shooting Junior World C'ship

Mumbai, Oct 3 (IANS) Manu Bhaker added two more gold medals to her tally as India bagged four gold -- out of the six on offer -- and two silver medals, to surge to the top of the medal standings at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) Junior World Championship, presently underway in Lima, Peru.

India swept the 10M Air Pistol medal events, including the Mixed, Women's, and Men's Team competitions as well the 10M Air Rifle Men's Team gold, to end the day with six gold, six silver, and two bronze medals. The USA are second with four gold, four silver, and two bronze medals.

Manu was at the heart of the Indian performance winning two more gold medals on the day. She now has a total of three golds from the Championship. After partnering with Sarabjot Singh to gold in the Air Pistol Mixed Team, she teamed up with Rhythm Sangwan and Shikha Narwal to win the 10M Air Pistol W'men's team event, beating Belarus 16-12 in the gold medal match, the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) said in a release.

The Men's Air Pistol team also struck gold with Naveen, Sarabjot Singh, and Shiva Narwal putting it across the Belarussian Men 16-14.

Earlier in the day, the Junior Men's 10M Air Rifle team had also won gold.

The Women's 10M Air Pistol Team event saw India dominate as they had topped round one of qualification earlier with a combined 1722 after 180 shots and then round two on Saturday shooting 569 'o Belarus' 568. In the final, although it was even at the start, the Indians finished strong to seal the victory.

In the Men's 10M Air Pistol Team event, India were as dominating. winning round one and round two before pulling off a tight gold medal match against Belarus yet again.

In the Women's 10M Air Rifle Tea' event, India's Nisha Kanwar, Zeena Khitta, and Atmika Gupta, did top the first qualification round but qualified for the gold match finishing second to the Hungarian trio of Eszter Mezaros, Eszter Denes, and Lea Horvath, in round two. The Hungarians maintained that superiority in the final to strike gold- their first of the competition.

It was also Atmika's second silver of the day as she had teamed up with Rajpreet 'ingh in the day's first medal event, the 10M Air Rifle Mixed Team, to finish second there as well. Rajpreet also now has one gold and one silver medal in his kitty.