From having 18 medals at the end of Day 3 of the ISSF Junior World Cup (6 Gold 4 Silver 8 Bronze), India have so far cemented their spot on the second place in the medal tally of the competition. On September 21, the very next day, the contingent of young shooters bagged five more medals to take their tally up to 23 medals overall- 9 Gold, 5 Silver and 4 Bronze medals.
The literal “young guns” of the country offer more hope for Indian Shooting prospects than most of the senior team does. For a discipline that has brought us nearly 65% of our Olympic medals over the years, 2016 proved to be a complete disappointment after no shooter managed a podium finish in Rio.
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Several close contentions were, of course, there; with people like Abhinav Bindra finishing fourth by a measly margin. In such discouraging conditions, the current performances by the junior shooting team of the country stand as a ray of hope. It says that the future of the country is indeed in good hands.
Shubhankar Pramanick made the nation proud with its first Gold medal in the competition. After finishing sixth in the qualification round for the Junior Men’s 50M Rifle Prone event, Pramanick went on to notch up a score of 205.5 over twenty shots to get the better of his competitors and clinch the Gold medal.
The earlier qualification round brought out the best in him as he registered his greatest ever international performance with a score of 613.8. The boy from Bengal is certainly going places with his prodigious skill.
Getting the second Gold medal in the competition was simpler- at least it certainly looked so. Sambhaji Patil. The seventeen-year-old medallist finished first with relative ease in the junior Men’s 25M Standard Pistol event. Almost effortlessly, he accumulated a score of 562 in all his rounds to beat out Australians Sergei Evglevski and James Ashmore who won the Silver and Bronze respectively.
Patil also had a role to play in the country's third gold medal which was the Junior Men’s Team Rifle Prone event- a team event he won alongside his compatriots, Gurmeet and Rituraj Singh.
Also read: 2016 ISSF Junior World Cup: Five more medals for India at ISSF Junior World Cup, Day 4
The highlights of the following day were definitely performances by Rushiraj Barot and the team effort of Pratik Borse, Arjun Babuta and Prashanth. At the end of an eventful day, Rushiraj Borat struck Gold to finish first in the Junior Men’s 25M Rapid Fire Pistol event. He bagged the penultimate spot in the qualifying round prior to this. His win took the country's tally to 18 medals at the end of the day- a tally which seemed to be rising by leaps and bounds.
The Women’s contingent
The women are not far behind either. In the Junior Women’s 10m Air Rifle, Dilreen Gill, Geetaksmi Dixit and Aashi Rastogi helped India bag another Team Bronze on that same day. That left India at second place with two more days left in the competition.
Today, five more medals were added to the kitty which included three Golds, a silver, and one bronze so far. Ahnad Jawanda won the third Gold of the day when he finished first in the individual Men’s 25M Pistol competition. The other two first-place finishes came from team events.
India's rise in this competition has certainly been meteoric. This performance certainly does act an antidote to the disappointment the Olympics caused. With much-hyped performances expected by Jitu Rai and Manavjit Singh Sandhu leading to virtually nothing, one was left wondering about the dismal state of sports in the country.
Day 6 of the event
There is one day of competition yet to come in the Junior World Cup. In the ongoing qualification round for the Junior men's trap event, young Manavaditya Rathore is currently ranked third after the completion of three rounds. Leading him are Italians Simone Ambrosio and Matteo Marongiu.
Countrymen Lakshay and Kismat Chopra are ranked 10th and 17th respectively. Lakshay sits only two points from the highest total as of now which Chopra has a bit more catching up to do as he is currently on 67 points from three rounds- six points behind the top of the leaderboard.
Also read: 2016 ISSF Junior World Cup: Rushiraj Barot wins Rapid Fire Pistol Gold
This kind of brilliance may be expected from Rathore. For him, it is a case of having good genes for this particular sport as he is the son of Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore. Earlier in May this year, he grabbed eyes after winning his first individual gold medal in theMen’s Junior Trap event on the final day of the International Junior Shotgun Cup held in Finland.
On that particular occasion, Kismat Chopra and Lakshay abetted India's medal tally at the same event as they won the bronze in a team event along with Rathore. It is safe to conclude that good performances by the youngsters in this discipline are not one-off occurrences. It is the result of consistent determination and brilliance.
As more and more young shooters appear in the fold of international competitions, future performances at events like the Olympics are greatly enhanced. Shooters like Kirti Gupta, Manavaditya Rathore, and Shubhankar Pramanick are a testament to this very hope.
At the ISSF Junior World Cup, Russia sits at the top spot with just three gold medals more than India. They have a cumulative tally of 25 to India's 23 which includes 12 Golds and 9 Silvers.
With one day left to come, the kids are all set to create history as they might just knock Russia off their comfortable top berth. It is completely within the realm of possibility to catch up and even better Russia's tally to eventually emerge the most successful contingent at this event.
