Arya fifth in women's air rifle, India remain second on medals tally

Lima [Peru], April 20 (ANI): Arya Borse finished a good fifth in the 10m Air Rifle Women event, shooting a first-ever final of an International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup stage in her rookie international season. At the Las Palmas range in Lima, Peru, where the second leg of the ISSF World Cup circuit is being held, Arya shot a superb 633.9 on Saturday, to qualify for the final, finishing only behind the reigning junior world champion and eventual gold medalist Wang Zifei of China, who set three world records on the day.
Arya bowed out after the 18th shot of the 24-shot final, her score reading 188.1, just 0.1 behind silver-winning reigning world champion Han Jiayu of China, who was fourth at that stage.
Wang also led a Chinese sweep of the medals in the event as another upcoming young talent Fan Xinyi, took bronze. She set a new junior qualification record (635.9) as well as the new junior and senior final world records (254.8) in a stunning display of air rifle shooting throughout the day.
That consolidated China's position at the top of the charts with three gold, three silver and four bronze medals. India, with Arjun Babuta's silver earlier in the day, is in third with two golds, two silvers and one bronze, putting them a gold behind the USA, who are in second.
Till she shot a 9.9 for her 17th shot, Arya had shot almost the perfect final, doing ever so well to maintain second position despite a rampaging Wang and strong challenges posed by world class shooters like Han, Jeanette Hegg Duestad (a multi-format ISSF World Champion in rifle) of Norway and Eunji Kwon of Korea.
She led after the first five shot series, was behind by 0.6 to Wang after the second and after momentarily going down to third, found herself back in second after the 16th single shot, 1.2 behind Wang and tied with Jeanette, who finished fourth eventually.
The 17th took the Indian down to fourth, and as Han and Jeanette fired high 10s for their 18th, Arya's 10.4 left her just short of Han.
Over at the Shotgun ranges where the Trap competitions also got underway, two Indian trap shooters, veteran Zoravar Sandhu in the men's trap and Pragati Dubey in the corresponding women's event, began with flawless first rounds of 25 each.
Zoravar, however, ended up with a tally of 70 after three rounds to finish the day in 21st place, while teammates Prithviraj Tondaiman and Lakshay Sheoran shot 69s to end 24th and 25th, respectively.
Among the women, it was national champion Bhavya Tripathi who finished best among the Indians with a tally of 69 (24,22,23), placing her seventh, while Pragati with 68 was lying ninth. Neeru was further back in 18th with a total of 60 hits. (ANI)