Indian shooter Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar secured a silver medal and equaled a world record in the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions final at the ISSF World Championships in Cairo, Egypt on Tuesday. In addition, Indian duo Samrat Rana and Esha Singh clinched silver in the 10m air pistol mixed team event, maintaining India’s second position in the medal tally behind China.Tomar scored 466.9 in the 45-shot final, finishing just 0.2 points behind China’s Olympic champion Liu Yukun who scored 467.1. This marked Tomar’s first individual world championship medal.The two-time Asian champion Tomar displayed exceptional performance in the qualification round, scoring perfect 200s in both Kneeling and Prone positions. He dropped only three points in Standing position to top the field with 597 points.
His qualification score matched the existing world record held jointly by Liu and Chinese shooter Linshu Du. Fellow Indian Niraj Kumar qualified fifth with a score of 592.In the eight-man final, Tomar had a challenging start with an 8.6 in his sixth Kneeling shot. He recovered strongly in the Prone position with impressive series scores of 53.3, 52.7, and 52.7, climbing to second place.Niraj Kumar finished fifth in his debut worlds final after fluctuating performances across positions. He was fourth after Kneeling, dropped to sixth in Prone, and made a partial recovery in Standing.The final moments were intense as Tomar and Liu exchanged leads. In the decisive last shot, Liu scored 10.1, requiring Tomar to score 10.2 or higher for gold. Tomar’s 9.8 resulted in silver, with France’s Romain Aufrere taking bronze.In the 10m air pistol mixed team event, Esha Singh and Samrat Rana topped qualifications with identical individual scores of 293, totaling 586. The second Indian pair of Suruchi and Shravan Kumar finished eighth with 579.The gold medal match against China’s top-ranked pair Kai Hu and Qianxun Yao was closely contested. After nine rounds, both teams were tied at nine points. The Chinese team secured the next three rounds, and despite India winning the 13th round, they lost 10-16.This result ended Esha’s reign as defending champion in this event, which she had previously won with Shiva Narwal. For Rana, this was an impressive worlds debut, finishing with two golds and one silver.India maintains second position in the overall medal standings with three gold, five silver, and three bronze medals. China leads with eight golds among their total of 14 medals.
