India's Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar won the gold medal in the 50m rifle 3 positions event at the ISSF Shooting World Cup in Changwon on Saturday.
The 21-year-old Tomar beat Hungary's Zalan Peklar 16-12 to finish at the top of the podium. He had also topped the qualification round with a score of 593. The seasoned Istvan Peni, also from Hungary, bagged the bronze. This was the junior world champion second ISSF World Cup gold and India's fourth of the competition, helping them hold on to top spot in the standings.
After showing incredible form in topping the qualifiers on Friday, Tomar also topped the ranking round early on Saturday morning with a score of 409.8 to make the decider. In the ranking round, Tomar had shot perfect scores in the first two kneeling and prone positions but had lost all of his seven points in the final standing position. Pekler shot 406.7 to join him.
In the final Pekler did put up a good challenge but Tomar was always ahead and in control. Another Indian in the fray, Chain Singh finished seventh in the final event.
India missed out on another medal as Manu Bhaker finished fourth in the women's 25m pistol after shooting extremely well to make it to the medal round. Her first task in the morning was to qualify for the ranking matches and she shot a steady rapid-fire round of 293 to qualify seventh with an overall effort of 581.
She then topped her four-woman ranking round missing just two shots across the four 5-shot series. Her score of 18 was four better than Singaporean Teh Xiu Hong who followed her through to eventually win gold. However in the medal round, she became the first to be eliminated in fourth place with just nine hits to her name after the fourth five-shot series.
Meanwhile, Anjum Moudgil qualified in sixth place for the ranking round of the women's 50m rifle 3P with a score of 586 in the qualifiers. The finals are on Sunday.