Indian women’s sports pistol team strikes gold again 

New Delhi : India’s sports pistol aces Rahi Sarnobat, Manu Bhaker, and Chinki Yadav, all Tokyo Olympic Games quota winners, struck gold yet again in the women’s 25m pistol team event of the World Cup here on Thursday.This was India’s 10th gold of this World Cup, being held in rifle, pistol, and shotgun events, and they continue to lead the table with 21 medals, including six silver and five bronze medals.The troika, which led an Indian 1-2-3 finish in the individual competition on Wednesday, was at it again on Thursday, when they downed Poland 17-7 in the team gold medal match on the seventh day of the competition at Dr. Karni Singh Shooting ranges.Asian Games champion Rahi was particularly impressive as she shot a series of five out of five hits (seven) out of the 12 five-shot series that were required to win the match. The first shooter to 16 points wins the match. Two points are awarded to the team winning one five-shot series which each of the three-team members has to shoot. Both teams get one point in case of a tied series.In the 50m rifle 3-position women’s team event, India went down to Poland 43-47 in a close encounter to settle for silver.The team went through two rounds of qualification before reaching the gold medal match. In the first round, where every team member had to shoot 15-shots in each of the three kneeling, prone and standing positions, India shot a total of 1304 out of 1350 to finish fourth out of eight teams.In the second qualification round, each team member shot 10 shots in each position, and here India finished with a combined 864, which was second to Poland who shot 872. Hungary was third with 857 and Indonesia was fourth with 856.This propelled India to the gold medal match with Poland while Hungary squared up with Indonesia for the bronze medal match.