Qatar’s Nasser Saleh al-Attiyah topped the skeet qualification with two other shooters after day one at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range in New Delhi on Saturday.
Al-Attiyah, 2012 London Olympic bronze medalist and an ace rally driver, began with a score of 24 in the first round before following it up with a perfect 25 each in the next two rounds. With a total score of 74, al-Attiyah shares the lead with UAE’s Saif bin Futais and India’s Gurjoat Khangura.
Two more rounds are scheduled for today, with the top six qualifying for the final, which will held later in the day. While the tournament is not a qualifying tournament for Tokyo Olympics, a good show in Delhi will help al-Attiyah improve his rankings seal his place for Tokyo.
Qatar’s two other shooters also performed well. Rashid Hamad and Ahmed Ali al-Ishaq shot 73 each to be tied with four others, just one shot behind the leaders.
Qatar also led the team competition after day one with a combined score of 220, followed by hosts India on 218 while Kazakhstan are third with 216.
Meanwhile, in the women’s 10m air rifle, Aisha al-Suwaidi finished 33rd out of 48 shooters after shed had shot a score of 620.5. Abdulnasser Osama al-Shaiba had a disappointing day in the 10m air pistol as he finished 23rd out of 26 competitors.
Yashaswini Deswal led the way for Indian shooters, winning the women's 10 metres air pistol. Deswal shot 238.8 to comfortably finish on top of the podium in the eight-women final while her compatriot Manu Bhaker managed 236.7 to settle for the silver medal. Viktoria Chaika of Belarus bagged the bronze medal with 215.9. Earlier, the 23-year-old Deswal also topped the qualifications with qualifications with 579.
The men’s 10 metres air pistol event was won by Iran’s Javad Foroughi, who edged out Asian Games champion Saurabh Chaudhary of India by 0.4 points. India's Abhishek Verma was third.
American Lucas Kozeniesky won men's 10m air rifle with a score of 249.8 – a mere 0.1 better than Hungary's Istvan Peni. India’s eighteen-year-old Divyansh Panwar, ranked number one in the world, was third.
There was also American joy in the women's 10m air rifle, with Mary Tucker coming first - scoring 251.5 - and Alison Weisz second. Eszter Denes of Hungary, the top qualifier, completed the podium.
