Shri Nivetha, Esha, Ruchita win gold in women's 10m air pistol team event

The Indian trio of Shri Nivetha, Esha Singh and Ruchita Vinerkar combined to win the gold medal in the women's 10m air pistol team event of the ISSF World Cup here on Wednesday.

The Indians shot 16 in the gold medal contest to finish on the podium for the country's third medal, and second gold, in the year's first World Cup. India led the standings with three medals -- two gold and a silver.

Germany's Andrea Katharina Heckner, Sandra Reitz and Carina Wimmer settled for the silver medal after managing 6 in the fight for the top prize.

The three Indian women had topped the qualification stage 2 with a total score of 574 on their way to the gold medal match.

Behind the Indian women were Heckner, Reitz and Wimmer, with 571.

Esha, Shri Nivetha and Ruchita had also topped qualification stage 1 with a total score of 856.

Earlier in the day, Olympian Saurabh Chaudhary, Gaurav Rana and Uchaganve Kedarling Balakrishna missed out on a bronze medal in the men's 10m air pistol team competition.

In the bronze medal match, the Indian pistol team finished with a total of 6 to finish at fourth place, behind Italy's Torracchi Alessio, Monna Paolo and Tesconi Luca, who aggregated 16.

In the Qualification Stage 2, the Indians totalled 581, ahead of their Italian counterparts (577).

In the first qualification, the Indians aggregated 765.

Before that, the Indian team of Rudrankkash Balasaheb Patil, Divyansh Singh Panwar and Srinjoy Dutta failed to secure a place in the bronze medal contest by a point in the men's 10m air rifle team event.

The Indian men's rifle team aggregated 624.1, only a point less than Czech Republic's Ales Entrichel, Jiri Privratsky and Filip Nepejchel's total score of 624.2.

The Czechs went on to win the bronze medal ahead of Austria.

The Indian team of Shreya Agarwal, Ayushi Gupta and Rajshree Sancheti finished seventh in the qualification stage 2 of women's 10m air rifle team event with a total score of 625.0.