Shooting World Cup: Manu Bhaker-Saurabh Chaudhary clinches silver in 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team event in Osijek

India’s star shooters Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary won a silver medal at the ISSF World Cup in Osijek, Croatia on Saturday in the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team Event. The Indian pair lost the gold medal match to Russia’s Vitalina Batsarashkina and Artem Chernousov 12-16.

Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary were looking to win their 6th successive World Cup gold medal in the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team Event. Their run began at the New Delhi World Cup at home in 2019. They had won gold medals at New Delhi, Beijing, Munich and Rio de Janeiro in 2019 and followed it up with another gold medal earlier this year in New Delhi.

However, their winning streak came to an end in Osijek against the experienced pair of Batsarashkina and Chemousov. Saurabh and Manu were trailing 2-6 and they fought back to make it 6-6 after the 6th series. They once again slipped with Manu struggling to consistency to shoot 10-pointers. The Russians, with a 12-6 lead, looked like sealing the win but the Indian duo fought back to make it 12-12.

The Russian pair then sealed the gold medal by winning the next two series.

Many congratulations to @realmanubhaker and @SChaudhary2002 for winning the in 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team at the @ISSF_Shooting World Cup in Osijek.#Cheer4India pic.twitter.com/JLTcmVM4Bg

— SAIMedia (@Media_SAI) June 26, 2021

Meanwhile, India’s Abhishek Verma and Yashaswini Deswal lost their bronze medal match in the Mixed Team Air Pistol event to Iran’s Golnoush Sebghatollahi and Javad Foroughi 7-17 and finished outside the podium.

India have won 3 medals at this edition of the ISSF World Cup that is being played a month ahead of the Tokyo Olympics. Earlier in the week, Saurabh Chaudhary won the 10m Air Pistol bronze medal while the women’s team of Manu, Rahi Sarnobat and Yashaswi Deswal won the bronze in the 10m Air Pistol women’s team event.

However, the Indian rifle shooters competing in the 10m air mixed event had a disappointing outing.

Both teams failed to make it to the final. While Elavenil Valarivan and Divyansh Singh Panwar reached the second qualification round, finishing sixth with 416.1, Anjum Moudgil and Deepak Kumar failed to clear the first qualifying round. The pair came a disappointing 15th for a total of 624.6.