ISSF World Cup: India's Elavenil Valarivan wins 10m Air Rifle gold in Rio de Janeiro
HIGHLIGHTS
• Elavenil, who has learnt the art of shooting from legend Gagan Narang, shot a score of 251.7 in the final to claim the top honours
• This was Elavenil's first World Cup medal in the senior category
• World number one and finals world record holder Apurvi failed to qualify for the finals, finishing 11th with a score of 627.7
Young Elavenil Valarivan won her maiden gold medal in the women's 10m Air Rifle event even as fancied teammates Anjum Moudgil and Apurvi Chandela finished out of medal bracket at the ISSF World Cup Rifle/Pistol Stage.
In her debut year at the senior level, Elavenil shot 251.7 in the finals to help India extend their newly found dominance in the event leaving behind Seonaid Mcintosh of Britain, who won silver with an effort of 250.6.
India has now won three out of the four World Cup gold medals in the women's 10m Air this year.
Chinese Taipei's Ying-Shin Lin won bronze as well as one of the two Tokyo 2020 quota places on offer. The second quota was won by Iran.
Gujarat's Elavenil had earlier pipped her senior Anjum in qualification, with an impressive 629.4 to the world No 2's 629.1 as they took the fourth and fifth spots through to the eight-woman final.
World number one and finals world record holder Apurvi failed to qualify for the finals, finishing 11th with a score of 627.7.
In fact, such has been India's supremacy in the event that Mehuli Ghosh, shooting in the non-competition Minimum Qualification Score (MQS) section, shot a 629.1, which could have earned her a final spot as well.
Anjum lead the finals field after the first five shots as Seonaid began as she finished and the eight finalists bunched closely at the top.
The Briton then attempted to pull ahead after 10 shots as Anjum had a poor second series to go down to fifth by the 12th shot.