ISSF World Cup Rifle/Pistol: India's Nischal Singh wins silver in women's 50m rifle 3 position

India's young shooter Nischal Singh won silver medal in women's 50m rifle 3 positions at the ISSF World Cup Rifle/Pistol in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She gave India its second medal on the last day of the competition on Monday.

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Nischal's achievement is also important because this was her first World Cup at the senior level. Nischal scored 458.0 points in the final and finished second behind Norway's star shooter Jeanette Hegg Duestad. Duestad is the reigning European champion in air rifle and has a total of 12 ISSF World Cup medals, including five gold medals. She also stood fourth in the Tokyo Olympics. Nischal performed brilliantly throughout the day and in the meantime also broke the national record in the women's 3 position qualification.

Meanwhile, in the qualification, Nischal scored 542 points, which also included a 'perfect' 200 points scored in the prone position. In this way, she broke Anjum Moudgil's national record of 591 points set in the President Cup in Cairo last year. Anjum scored 586 marks and could not make it to the finals by finishing at 10th position. Ayushi Podder stood 35th with 580 marks.

In the ISSF World Cup Rifle/Pistol final, Nishal went head-to-head against Duestad from the very onset of the 45-shot final. She was 0.1 behind Duestad after the first 15 kneeling shots and then after 15 shots in the prone position. Nishal eventually won the silver medal, with Grundsoee winning the bronze medal.

Apart from Duestad, many top players made it to the ISSF World Cup Rifle/Pistol finals. They are – world champion Miao Wanru of China, 2018 Youth Olympic champion Stephanie Grundsoee of Denmark, Olympian Sofia Ceccarello of Italy, and Aneta Stankiewicz of Poland.

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However, this had no effect on Nischal and she performed brilliantly from the beginning and gave a tough challenge to Duestad till the end. However, the Norwegian shooter made good use of her experience and won the gold medal by scoring 461.5 points. She was 3.5 points ahead of the Haryana shooter.

Gurpreet Singh was the other Indian shooter who was in action at the ISSF World Cup Rifle/Pistol. But he could shoot only 574 to finish 15th in the men's 25m rapid-fire pistol. A 16-member Indian team participated in the ISSF World Cup Rifle/Pistol tournament.