Bharadwaj wins bronze in Junior Shotgun World Cup

Teenager Shapath Bharadwaj today won a bronze medal in the double trap event while Lakshay Sheoran and Manisha Keer combined to win a bronze in the mixed team trap competition at the ISSF Junior Shotgun World Cup in Porpetto, Italy.
The 15-year old Bharadwaj, from Meerut, shot a 48 in the final to finish behind gold-medal winning Briton James Dedman and Finland's Miki Ylonen.
Dedman, in fact, smashed his own junior world record in the event, finishing with a final score of 70, while Miki had 66.
Shapath had qualified in second place for the final, shooting 131 out of 150. Ahvar Rizvi had also shot 124 but went down in the shoot-off to the eventual silver medallist Ylonen 2-1, for the sixth and final qualifying spot.

In a quality final field, which, beside the world record holder Dedman, also had Ying Qi of China, who had won a Senior World Cup stage bronze in Acapulco early this year.
Shapath started strongly and was in second position with 13 hits after the first 16 shots in the final, behind Dedman who had 14 hits. He shot 41 out of 50 to assure himself of a medal with Dedman pulling away from the field with 45 hits at that stage.

Meanwhile Miko Ylonen of Finland had slowly made his way up to challenge the leaders. He piped Shapath for the silver at the end of 60 shots, having got 50 hits to Shapath's 48.

This was India's first medal in the competition apart from the bronze won by Sheoran and Keer in the mixed team trap competition yesterday, which had the status of a test event.
The competition concludes tomorrow with the junior men's skeet finals.
Italy have so far dominated the competition winning three gold medals, including the mixed trap test event gold as well as three silver and one bronze medal.
Lakshay and Manisha beat the US pair of Sevin Edward Layer and Emma Lee Williams 34-33 in the bronze medal match.
The Indian pair finished fourth among 16 teams in the qualifying, shooting a combined score of 84 out of 100 to make the six-team final rounds.

Italy's Emanuele Buccolieri and Maria Palmitessa defeated fellow Italians Alberto Belluzzo and Erica Sessa 41-37 in the gold medal match. The event was billed as a test event.
On the fourth day of competitions, two finals have been scheduled in the junior men's double trap and the junior women's skeet disciplines.
Bharadwaj had qualified in second place for the final, shooting 131 out of 150.
In the women's junior skeet, Areeba Khan and Ganemat Sekhon were 12th and 15th respectively with one more 25-shot round left in qualifying.