India's Satyendra Singh reached the finals of the Men's 50m Rifle 3 Positions event, on the concluding day of competitions at the third and final stage of the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Rifle/Pistol series, which was held in Gabala, Azerbaijan.
He, however, could not make it to the podium and finished eighth on Tuesday.
Besides Satyendra, India had two other finalists in the Gabala World Cup--Meghana Sajjanar and Pooja Ghatkar in the Women's 10m Air Rifle event. Meghana and Pooja had finished fourth and fifth respectively which meant that India could not make it to the medal tally in the tournament.
India though won the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team gold, with the pair of Jitu Rai and Heena Sidhu emerging winners in the event which is going to be a full-fledged Olympic medal event in the Tokyo 2020 summer Olympics.
Earlier in the day, Satyendra gave a good account of himself, shooting a score of 1173 to qualify for the eight-man final, in an event considered to be one of the most grueling among all the shooting disciplines. This was his first ever World Cup final appearance and by far his best ever qualification score.
Satyendra's seasoned compatriot and Olympian Sanjeev Rajput could only manage a score of 1157 in qualifying to bow out in 45th place. Satyendra was the first to be eliminated in the final on a score of 396.7 after 40 shots. Istvan Peni of Hungary won the Gold medal with a final round score of 458.4. Zicheng Hui of China won Silver while Tomasz Bartnik of Poland won the Bronze.
A total of 430 athletes from 45 countries competed for medals at the ISSF World Cup Rifle/Pistol in Gabala and China topped the medal tally with a total of eight medals won out of the 30 given out, including four out of the 10 Gold medals.
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