India’s shooters were on target in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires. At the Tiro Federal Argentino de Buenos Aires shooting range, late night Friday, Sift Kaur Samra, Hangzhou Asian Games Gold medallist, won her first individual ISSF World Cup gold, also giving India a top-first podium finish in the ongoing World Cup.
In the 50m Rifle 3 Position final, Sift was 7.2 points behind Germany’s Anita Mangold, who eventually settled for silver, but was leading after 15 shots in the first Kneeling position. Sift made a strong comeback in the Prone and Standing positions to secure the gold medal.
At the end of the 45-shot final, India’s 23-year-old champion shooter finished with 458.6, while Mangold was 3.3 points behind on 455.3. Kazakhstan’s Arina Altukhova finished third with 445.9 when she bowed out after the 44th shot.
With Sift’s gold medal, India now have two medals including Chain Singh’s bronze, won earlier in the men’s category in the same event. Three Indians featured in the final — Aishwary Pratap Tomar and Niraj Kumar, alongside Chain. He won the medal with 443.7 points in the final.
Looking at Sift’s run in the competition, she did well in the qualifiers with 590 points, when shooters like Chiara Leone, reigning Olympic champion, and Nina Christen, also previously an Olympic champion – both from Switzerland – didn’t make the top eight. Olympic medallists like Alexandria Le of Kazakhstan and the USA’s Mary Tucker also didn’t qualify.
Cairo 2022 world champion, China’s Miao Wanru, and her compatriot Wang Zifei, a junior world champion, were both in the final. Along with them, two Germans – Mangold, who won the silver, and Nele Stark – competed in the top eight. Austria’s Olivia Hoffman, Switzerland’s 16-year-old Emely Jaeggi were the other finalists.
As is usually always the case with Sift, her start was weak compared to the later stages. She didn’t hit the 10-ring in the Kneeling position. Till about the end of the Prone round, she was in eighth position. She scored 147.2 in Kneeling, where Mangold took top spot with 154.4, 7.2 ahead. Sift was in 8th spot with 304.1 at the end of Prone, still 4.3 points behind Stark.
At the start of the Standing Elimination round, she began with a strong 52.3 and didn’t look back. Just as Usain Bolt used to sprint in the last 50m of his races, Sift accelerated through the ranks from eighth to top spot — 51.2 in her second Standing set, and then 10.5, 10.3, 10.5, 10.0 and a 9.7 in the final shot, when Mangold could manage only 9.0. A comeback to reckon with and learn from.
Currently with Sift’s gold and Chain’s bronze, India sit in second spot behind China, who have a gold and a silver.
Saturday Finals
In the women’s Skeet, Paris 2024 Olympian, Raiza Dhillon, is currently in 6th spot after the qualification round on Friday, April 4. On Saturday, there’s one more 25-shot round of qualifiers before the finals on the same day. Dhillon has 94 (25, 22, 24, 23) points currently, two behind the leader.
In the 25m Women’s Pistol, Paris Olympics double-medallist, Manu Bhaker, sits in 4th spot with 291-7x (96, 99, 96) and will contest the final on Saturday. That’s scheduled to begin around 7:30 pm IST.
The women’s Skeet final is to begin from 11 pm IST, and the men’s final is slated for 00:30 am on April 6.