ISSF World Cup: Aishwary Pratap Singh wins gold in Cairo
Cairo on Wednesday as Olympian Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar clinched the gold medal in the men's individual 50m rifle 3-positions event.This was India's sixth medal, including four gold, in the tournament as the country strengthened its position at the top of the medals tally.Tomar got the better of Austria's Alexander Schmirl in the gold medal contest, winning it comfortably with a scoreline of 16-6.
The 22-year-old Tomar, who had also won a gold in the Changwon World Cup last year, was behind Schmirl after the ranking round, with a total score of 406.4 against the table topper's 407.9 points.Earlier, the Indian had topped the qualification after aggregating 588 over the three stages of kneeling, prone and standing.Akhil Sheoran, another Indian participating in the event, was second in the qualification with 587.This was the Indian's second individual World Cup gold, the first coming in South Korea.Speaking after the event, Tomar said, "I had not performed well twice earlier at this range so this time I was determined to go back with a medal."Asked what his mindset was after a slow start in the ranking round, he said, "It did not affect me much. As I said, I was very determined and was confident that I could always come back in my favourite 'standing' position and that's what happened."Tomar first topped the qualification round with a score of 588 after 20 shots each in the kneeling, prone and standing positions. He had teammate Sheoran for company in the ranking round.The Indian duo began slow in the ranking round with Tomar sixth and Sheoran eighth after the first five kneeling position shots.After the end of the allocated 10 shots in the second prone position however, both had moved up with Sheoran in second and Tomar