What’s the story?
The junior shooting squad of India came out with flying colours at the 27th Meeting of the Shooting Hopes which concluded recently. India finished with a highly commendable haul of 11 medals from the renowned international shooting competition for the upcoming shooters in the Rifle and Pistol disciplines held annually at the Czech city of Plzen.
The context
The young Indian shooters returned home with a total of three gold medals. In addition to that, India also won four silver medals and four bronze medals.
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The heart of the matter
The tournament lasted for four days and had a total of 14 rifle and pistol events. The competition saw as many as 459 athletes taking part from a total of 23 different countries.
Anmol Jain - who only recently participated in his first senior International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup stage in Munich - was the pick of the lot with three medals. He won a team gold in the junior men’s 10m Air Pistol and a team silver in the 50m pistol event. He also bagged an individual silver in the 50m pistol event.
The lone individual gold medal for the indian contingent came from Anhad Jawanda in the 25m pistol event for junior men. Jawanda scored 289 in the precision stage and 295 in the rapid fire section, making it a total score of 584 as he beat Oskar Miliwek of Poland by two points.
Arjun Babuta also shone bright in the junior men’s 10m air rifle, winning the silver medal. He was mightily close to winning the gold, ending with a final round score of 249 and a qualification score of 623.9. He fell short by just half a point to eventual gold medalist Evgeniy Ishchenko of Russia in the final. Among others he beat in the final was local favourite Filip Nepejchal, who was the gold medallist in the 2016 Baku World Cup.
The efforts of Saurabh Chaudhury and Anish are noteworthy as well as both won individual bronze medals. While the former did it in the Junior Men’s 10m Air Pistol event, the latter did it in the Junior Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol event.
What’s next?
Buoyed by the tremendous performance of the junior shooters, the Indian senior shooting team will take part in the ISSF World Cup Rifle/Pistol in Azerbaijan from 6-14 Juneand the ISSF World Championship Target Sprint in Suhl, Germany from 22-26 June.
Author’s take
The future stars will look to build on this with such performances in the future.
