The teenaged Indian pairing of Shiva Narwal and Esha Singh won the gold medal in 10m air pistol mixed team event at the ongoing ISSF World Championship in Baku on Friday. This is India's first gold and second medal at this year's tournament.
They defeated Turkey's Yusuf Dikec and Sevval Tarhan 16-10 in the gold match of the Olympic event. Earlier, the pair had topped the 65-team qualification stage.
Shiva and Esha shot 583 after 30-shots each in the first qualification relay. It was enough to be the best in both the relays combined and the experienced 50-year-old Dikec and Tarhan of Turkey came second with 581. China won bronze defeating Iran in the bronze medal match after both teams had finished third and fourth in qualification.
Air Pistol Mixed Team #worldchampions Shiva Narwal (2nd from left) & Esha Singh with national pistol coaches Samaresh Jung (left), Munkhbayar Dorjsuren (centre) & Rajiv Sharma (right) after the final at Baku.#ISSFWorldChampionship #Baku #IndianShooting #Shooting pic.twitter.com/P14qT5qO9K
- NRAI (@OfficialNRAI) August 18, 2023
In the final, the Indians began by winning both the first two single-shot series and taking a 4-0 lead in the first-to-16 race. Turkey then bounced back to level and then take the lead at 6-4. The Indians started the turnaround from then on. Two solid 10s by the Indian teenagers in the sixth and seventh series and two shots in the 9s by the Turks in the eighth, saw Esha and Shiva wrest the lead back at 10-6. They kept up the lead from then on to win gold.
India are currently placed second on the medals table with a gold and a bronze medal, while China lead the tally with five gold and two bronze medals. Earlier, Shiva Narwal, Sarabjot Singh and Arjun Singh Cheema had won bronze in the 10m air pistol mixed team event.
"I am feeling very good as the experience in Baku has been good with one gold and one bronze medal. After finishing our first qualification relay we were not sure whether we would fight for gold but once we knew that we were in the gold match, we were confident of winning gold. Both of us had practiced together for finals at the Olympic range in Chateauroux, France last month," Narwal said after the final.
Speaking about his "home-coach" brother Manish Narwal, who is a shooter too and has won a Paralympics gold, he said, "He has been the most supportive. I just spoke to him after the final but could not speak much as the network was not good."
Other results
In the day's other results, the pair of Mehuli Ghosh and Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar ended ninth overall while Divyansh Panwar and Ramita finished 17th in the qualification of the 10m air rifle mixed team competition.
In the women's skeet the Indian team of Ganemat Sekhon, Parinaaz Dhaliwal and Darshna Rathore missed out on a bronze, finishing fourth with a combined tally of 351 points.
In the men's skeet, whose final qualification round and finals are slated for Saturday, Angad Bajwa shot two perfect rounds of 25 to climb up to 25th position with a score of 97. Anant Jeet Singh Naruka was 41st with 96 and Gurjoat Khangura was lying in 78th position with a score of 93.