Gurpreet Singh wins silver at World Championships in the 25m Centre Fire Pistol event

Olympian Gurpreet Singh won silver in the 25m Centre Fire Pistol at the World Championships in Cairo, narrowly missing gold to Ukraine’s Pavlo Korostylov on inner 10s. India finished third overall with 13 medals, including three gold

Hyderabad: Olympian Gurpreet Singh came agonisingly close to becoming the World Champion in the 25m Centre Fire Pistol event, losing the gold medal on inner 10s to Ukraine’s Pavlo Korostylov at the Olympic Shooting Range in Cairo, Egypt.

This is Gurpreet’s second individual medal at the World Championships, the first also a silver won in 2018 at Changwon in the 25m Standard Pistol event. Yann Pierre Louis Fridrici of France claimed the bronze.

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Gurpreet shot a total of 584-18x over two days of competition in the precision and rapid stages, while Korostylov shot 29 inner 10s and a perfect score of 100 in the final rapid round to edge away with the gold. The Indian shooter, who was placed ninth after the precision stage with 288-8x (95, 97, 96), came back strongly on the second day to shoot 296-10x (98, 99, 99) in the rapid stage to clinch silver. The Ukrainian, who was leading after the precision stage with 291-14x, shot 293-15x in the rapid stage to level Gurpreet’s score and secure gold.

Harpreet Singh, who was in contention for a medal after the precision stage with 291-10x that placed him second, could only manage 286-6x in the rapid stage and eventually finished ninth. The other Indian shooter, Sahil Choudhary, finished 28th with 561-14x (Precision – 272-4x, Rapid – 289-10x). The three shooters also finished outside the team medal places, ending fifth.

India concluded their World Championship campaign in third place with a total of 13 medals — three gold, six silver and four bronze — behind China, who won 12 gold, seven silver and two bronze, and South Korea, who secured seven gold, three silver and four bronze.