Udhayveer Sidhu shot 587 out of 600 and won the junior men’s sports pistol gold in the 52nd World Shooting Championship in Changwon, Korea, on Thursday.
The 16-year-old Udhayveer also helped the Indian team to the gold along with his twin brother Vijayveer (581) and Rajkanwar Singh Sandhu (568).
The double gold haul on the penultimate of the championship took India’s tally to nine gold, eight silver and seven bronze medals.
India was in the fourth place with 24 medals behind China (39), Korea (32) and Russia (35) which had 18, 11 and nine gold medals respectively.
After leading on 291 overnight at the halfway stage, Udhayveer did better in the rapid fire section by gathering 296 points following a series of 97, 99 and 100. Vijayveer who had also led overnight, shot 290, which helped the team considerably in securing the gold, six points ahead of China.
In the men’s centre fire pistol, Olympian Gurpreet Singh shot 581 and placed 10th, as he missed a medal by five points. Olympic silver medallist Vijay Kumar and Commonwealth Games gold medallist Anish Bhanwala shot identical scores of 576. The Indian team, thus missed the bronze medal by two points to China.
In men’s skeet, Sheeraz Sheikh found himself in the 39th place despite shooting 72 out of 75 in the first three rounds. Angad Vir Singh Bajwa and Mairaj Ahmad Khan had identical scores of 69 that placed them in the 76th and 77th place, with two more rounds to go before the final for the top six.
Vincent Hancock of the US and Ben Llewellin of Britain led with a perfect score of 75.
In junior women’s skeet, Parinaaz Dhaliwal was on 64 after three rounds, with Che Yufei of China leading on 72. Simranpreet Kaur and Areeba Khan had identical scores of 61, as they struggled to avoid the bottom placing in a field of 26 shooters.
The results:
Men:
25m centre fire pistol: 1. Julio Almeida (Bra) 591; 2. Christian Reitz (GEr) 588; 3. Pavlo Korostylov (Ukr) 586; 10. Gurpreet Singh 581; 24. Vijay Kumar 576; 25. Anish Bhanwala 576.
Team: 1. Korea 1743; 2. France 1737; 3. China 1736; 4. India 1733.
Junior men:
25m sports pistol: 1. Udhayveer Sidhu 587; 2. Henry Turner Leverett (US) 584; 3. Lee Jaekyoon (Kor) 582; 4. Vijayveer Sidhu 581; 20. Rajkanwar Singh Sandhu 568.
Team: 1. India 1736; 2. China 1730; 3. Korea 1721.
