PUNE: India’s Anjum Moudgil won her first International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup medal by bagging silver in the Women’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions (3P) event in Guadalajara, Mexico.
On a windy day, Anjum performed brilliantly to register a score of 454.2 on Thursday. She finished behind China’s Ruijiao Pei who produced a score of 455.4 after the 45-shot final.
China’s Ting Sun claimed the bronze medal, finishing with a score of 442.2. This was India’s eighth medal of the competition and the first silver after having taken three gold and four bronze medals already, for their best ISSF World Cup performance by far, till date.
Anjum remained in medal contention from the beginning of the final and at the end of the 15-shot kneeling position stood third behind Ruijiao and Slovakia’s Ziva Dvorsak.
She pulled into the lead after the second 5-shot prone position series, which followed the kneeling position and was 0.9 points clear of world number one Jolyn Beer of Germany at the end of it. After the 15-shot prone series she was still in the lead.
However, after the 10th shot of the last standing series when the first two finalists out of the eight were eliminated, Anjum had gone down to the fourth position. A brilliant 10.8 in the 41st shot took her up to second and she maintained that position finishing with scores of 10.2, 10.1, 9.5 and 10.2 to secure a well deserved silver medal.
“NRAI has been supporting in every possible way and like always Deepali ma’am has been always with me in all the ups and downs....I am really looking forward for more improvement and training for the upcoming competitions. I would also like to thank my sponsors for supporting me,” Anjum said.
MEDAL IN GOLD COAST IS MY NEXT TARGET: ANJUM
1. How does it feel to finally win a World Cup medal?
It really feels great to win my first World Cup medal. It was my first time in a final and I was very much focussed and confident about my performance.
How confident were you of winning a medal here? Did the success of your teammates earlier help in the confidence?
I was a bit nervous before the qualifying round but for the finals I was quite confident and winning a medal was not my thought but performing to the best of my ability was what I was focussing on...but yes I was confident and it did not come as a surprise
What are your immediate next targets?
Commonwealth Games, Australia
Do you want to dedicate this medal to someone?
Yes, I would like to dedicate this medal to my coach Deepali Deshpande (she has worked so hard for me) and would also like to thank our team coach Oleg and NRAI and my family, friends.
