ISSF World Cup: Dominant Arya-Arjun pair outplays Olympic Champions to win gold
India’s Arya Borse and Arjun Babuta dished out a thoroughly dominant performance and outplayed China’s reigning Olympic and world champion duo Zifei Wang and Lihao Sheng 17-7 to win the gold medal in the 10m air rifle mixed team event of the ISSF World Cup here on Saturday.
Arya and Arjun were in fine fettle when it mattered the most to win the top prize in the prestigious tournament, not giving the Chinese an inch.
The Indian duo entered the gold medal round after aggregating 635.2 in the qualifications, just .7 behind Wang and Sheng (635.9), which is also the qualifications world record.
Arya had paired with Rudrankksh Patil to win the 10m air rifle mixed team silver in the World Cup in Lima, Peru, earlier this year.
The other Indian pair in the event, Elavenil Valarivan and Ankush Jadhav finished sixth in the qualifications with 631.8.
Norway’s Jeanette Hegg Duestad and Jon-Hermann Hegg bagged the bronze medal with a 16-14 victory over the UAS’s Sagen Maddalena and Peter Matthew Fiori.
This is India’s fourth medal and second gold in the ongoing World Cup after Suruchi Singh’s yellow mettle and the two bronze won by Sift Kaur Samra and Elavenil in their respective individual events earlier this week.
In the 10m air pistol mixed team event, the combo of Manu Bhaker and Aditya Malra ended sixth with a combined total of 577 in the qualifications, while the Suruchi Singh and Varun Tomar was placed 10th with 576.
Unstoppable Borse-Babuta
Taking aim on the concluding day of the tournament, Arjun (317.7) and Arya (317.5) shot a combined 635.2 to finish second behind Sheng and Wang, who topped the 58-team field with a world record (also junior) score of 635.9.
In the final, Arya began with a 9.8 to give the Chinese pair an early lead (0-2), but in the next seven series of single shots, the Indians shot only one shot below 10.5 (a 10.2) to take a huge 13-3 lead after the eighth series.
The top Chinese pair then managed to win the next two narrowly in the race to 16, but it was again business as usual from the 11th series, as Arya and Arjun fired a couple of 10.5 and 10.7s respectively, to get to match point.
In the final 12th series, while Arjun cancelled out Sheng with identical 10.1s, Arya outgunned Wang 10.6-10.4, to give India a memorable gold medal.
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