Meeting of Shooting Hopes: Arjun Babuta and Anmol Jain fire silver

Arjun Babuta’s consistently brilliant shooting in the final proved inadequate as he was beaten by half a point by Evgenil Ishchenko of Russia in the air rifle event of the 27th Meeting of Shooting Hopes international junior competition in Plzen on Saturday.

Arjun had the lead for the most part in the 24-shot final, but was overtaken on the last six shots Ishchenko, who incidentally topped the qualification and wound up with a 10.5 last shot to 10.1 by the Indian. Arjun shot 249.0 in the final after qualifying with 623.9.

It was a welcome improvement for the Indian squad which had won only two individual bronze medals on the first two days of competition through Saurabh Chaudhary in air pistol and Anish in rapid fire pistol.

It was the second silver for India after Anmol Jain’s in the 50m free pistol earlier in the day.

Anmol had 10.6 and 10.4 on the last two shots but it only helped him bridge the gap from a three-point deficit with the eventual champion Alexander Petrov of Russia.

Anmol had qualified in second place with a score of 555, following a series of 89, 90, 98, 93, 95 and 90.

Arjun Singh Cheema also made the final with a score of 550, but settled for seventh place.

Muskan improved the Indian collection by bagging the junior women’s bronze in the 25m sports pistol. She missed a better medal by one point to Agate Rasmane of Latvia.

The results: Junior: Men: 50m free pistol: 1. Alexander Petrov (Rus) 228.9 (546); 2. Anmol Jain 227.5 (555); 3. Paolo Monna (Ita) 206.3 (550); 7. Arjun Singh Cheema 127.1 (550); 29. Rahul Khatri 527; 30. Jatin Singh Rathore 526.

10m air rifle: 1. Evgenil Ishchenko (Rus) 249.5 (625.5); 2. Arjun Babuta 249.0 (623.9); 3. Borna Petanjek (Cro) 227.7 (623.8); 20. Hriday Hazarika 619.0; 27. Sachet Santosh Pinnanath 617.4.

Women: 25m sports pistol: 1. Julia Chwedczuk (Pol) 30 (569); 2. Agate Rasmane (Lat) 28 (574); 3. Muskan 24 (569); 12. Gauri Sheoran 566; 35. Chinki Yadav 552.

50m rifle prone: 1. Sara Karasova (Cze) 625.0; 2. Katerina Stefankova (Cze) 622.9; 3. Julie Milliere (Fra) 622.1; 15. Shirin Godara 617.5; 17. Ayushi Podder 615.7; 40. Prasiddhi Mahant 613.0; 44. Yashika Vishwajeet Shinde 612.0; 81. Shreya Saksena 606.4.