After missing out on an individual medal in Munich, double Olympic Games medallist Manu Bhakar won a medal in the mixed 10m pistol event teaming with Samrat Rana at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Rifle/Pistol event on Saturday. Manu has not been performing to her lofty standards this season, but has managed to win a few in mixed events. She won an individual medal at the Asian championships and gold in mixed earlier this year. But when it comes to the World Cup, she is not yet shone like previous years.
With this medal, India finished second with two gold and two silver medals behind China who secured four gold and three bronze medals.
Manu and Samrat had a slow start, shooting 100.0 after the first series of five shots each to be in third out of the four team finals with Samrat hitting 51.0 and Manu a 49.0. Manu caught her rhythm in the second series hitting a high 51.5 while Samrat’s 49.9 helped the pair to leap into second.
The Indian pair cut down the lead with the Chinese pair to just 0.1 at the end of the third series with Manu hitting an impressive 51.8 while Samrat followed it up with another good score of 50.7. Both shooters took a huge 2.2-point lead at the end of the first elimination series of three shots with scores of 30.9 from Manu and 30.5 from Samrat. The Chinese pair faltered with scores of 29.7 and 29.4.
Samrat hit 31.2 in the next elimination series, but Manu faltered with shots of 9.3 and 8.8 in her 19th and 20th shots, allowing the Chinese to catch up. At the end of the 21st shot, the 2.2 points lead that the Indians had was wiped out as Yao and Hu took 0.2 points lead. Shen Yihao and Bu Shuaihang of China were confirmed as the bronze medallists after the series.
Manu started the last series with a 10.6 but Samrat could only manage a low 8.8 which increased the lead of the Chinese pair. Yao did shoot an 8.7 herself in the 23rd shot but HU Kai compensated for that with three shots in the high 10s. Meanwhile the Indian pair could only manage to cut short the lead by 0.3 points, confirming their silver medal.