Cairo: Olympian Gurpreet Singh came close to becoming world champion in the men’s 25m Center Fire Pistol event but had to settle for silver after losing on inner 10s to Ukraine’s Pavlo Korostylov at the Olympic Shooting Range, marking his second individual medal in the ISSF World Championship 2025 after a silver in the 25m Standard Pistol event in Changwon in 2018, while Yann Pierre Louis Fridrici of France claimed bronze.
India wrapped up their International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Championship campaign in third place with 13 medals—three gold, six silver and four bronze—finishing behind China, which topped the table with 12 gold, seven silver and two bronze, and South Korea, which secured seven gold, three silver and four bronze to take second position.
Gurpreet shot a total of 584-18x across two days, recovering from ninth place after the precision stage where he scored 288-8x (95, 97, 96), to fire an exceptional 296-10x (98, 99, 99) in the rapid stage to clinch the silver, while Korostylov, who led with 291-14x after precision, shot 293-15x in rapid to tie Gurpreet’s score and win gold on the basis of superior 29 inner 10s including a perfect 100 in the final rapid round.
Harpreet Singh, second after the precision stage with 291-10x, faltered with 286-6x in rapid to finish ninth, and Sahil Choudhary placed 28th with 561-14x (precision 272-4x, rapid 289-10x), with all three Indians ending fifth in the team standings.
India’s gold medals came from Samrat Rana (10m Air Pistol) and Ravinder Singh (50m Standard Pistol and 10m Air Pistol Team), while silver medals were secured by Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar (50m Rifle 3 Positions Men), Anish Bhanwala (25m Rapid Fire Pistol), Gurpreet Singh (25m Center Fire Pistol), and Esha Singh and Samrat Rana in the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team, 10m Women’s Air Pistol Team and 50m Men’s Standard Pistol Team events; bronze medals were won by Esha (25m Sports Pistol), Elavenil Valarivan (10m Air Rifle) and Varun Tomar (10m Air Pistol and 10m Women’s Air Rifle Team).
(IANS)
