BHOPAL: The trend of the past three days continued, and India’s search for their second gold of the ISSF World Cup here ended with a bronze medal, bagged by Fardikot’s MBBS student Sift Kaur Samra in the women’s 50m 3P event This after she had almost decided to quit the sport following the 2022 national championships.
Samra’s first senior international medal in an individual event brought the curtain down on India’s campaign. The hosts finished with one gold, won by air pistol shooter Sarabjot Singh on the first day of the competition on Wednesday, besides one silver and five bronze medals.
China, who came to Bhopal for their first World Cup appearance in 2023 with a young squad, were the run-away winners with seven gold, two of which were bagged on Sunday, two silver and two bronze medals.
In the last event of the tournament, the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol, China’s reigning world champion Jueming Zhang topped the podium, followed by France’s Clement Bessaguet at number two with Germany’s Rio Olympics champion Christian Rietz settling for bronze.
It saw no Indian making it to the top-eight final. Vijayveer Sidhu finished just outside that bracket, in ninth position, and Anish Bhanwala at 11th.
Samra’s podium finish was promising in the sense that after Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar’s creditable fourth-place finish, the women’s 3P shooting too did well by going a step higher to finish third.
With a score of 588 in qualification, Samra was second on the list of top-eight qualifiers and then finished the final in third place with a score of 403.9.
However, the Indian was never in the fray for a position higher than number three, as Qiongyue Zhang of China and Aneta Brabcova of the Czech Republic created a run-away points-gap to compete for gold, eventually won by Zhang with a total of 414.7.
Brabcova finished with 411.3.
“It was on my mind for some time that I have a World Cup medal in a team event but not in individual,” said Samra after the medal ceremony at the MP State Shooting Academy.
Samra, who is also a national champion, won her maiden senior World Cup medal in 50m 3P Team event at the Changwon World Cup in 2022.
The 21-year-old Samra started shooting only in 2016.
“I don’t like pistols, so I started with rifle. I shot just a single shot with a pistol and it went outside the card (smiles),” the girl from Faridkot said.
ALMOST QUIT SHOOTING<\/span>
Samra was a little disappointed when she was asked if she is able to manage her MBBS studies as well as the demands of shooting.
“Manage nahi ho pa raha (unable to manage),” she said. “The college (GGS Medical College, Faridkot) is not supporting. I asked them to let me take the exam separately, but they said no, we can’t allow that. So they are asking me to repeat my first year of MBBS again.”
Samra, in fact, was on the verge of quitting the sport in 2022, but the last national championships at this same range in Bhopal changed things for her.
“Before the nationals, I had got admission in MBBS, so I was like this is my last match. But I created a national record. So a relaxed mindset, that I will quit the sport after this, actually helped me pick up (perform),” she said.
“So now, until 2024, I will give to shooting, and then we will see.”<\/div>\n