India eye medals in rifle, pistol mixed team events as Ningbo WC begins Tuesday

The Indian shooting team will begin the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Rifle/Pistol in Ningbo, China, with both the rifle and pistol mixed teams in action on Tuesday at the Ningbo Olympic Sports Center.

India have named a 24-member Indian team comprising shooters ranked primarily between four-six in the national rankings for the final World Cup stage of the calendar year.

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Former junior World Champion and Olympian Ramita Jindal will pair up with junior World Championship medalist Umamahesh Maddineni while former World number one and Olympian Divyansh Singh Panwar, will team up with Meghana M. Sajjanar in the Air Rifle Mixed Team event for India. Arjun Babuta and Arya Borse won gold in the event in the previous Munich World Cup.

In the Air Pistol Mixed Team competition, Olympian Rhythm Sangwan will pair up with Nishant Rawat while Amit Sharma will join Surbhi Rao. India won a gold in Lima and a bronze in Buenos Aries in this event through the pair of Suruchi Singh and Saurabh Chaudhary.

The new-look Indian rifle pairs will be up against some of the in-form shooters of the world including World Number 1 and double Olympic gold medalist Sheng Lihao and 16 year old Peng Xinlu, who recently won silver at the Asian Shooting Championship in both the individual and mixed team events. Xinlu’s partner at the Asian Championships, Lu Dingke along with Liyuan Zhang will be the second Chinese pair in action. Norway’s 50m 3P World Number 1, Jeanette Hegg Duestad and Jon-Hermann Hegg who won gold in Lima will also be strong favourites.

Other prominent pairs in action will include World Number 2 Eunji Kwon and Paris silver medalist Hajun Park and Yuna Kwon and Junhwan Lee of Korea, Neutral athletes Ilia Marsov and Mariia Vasileva, Jiri Privratsky and Katerina Stefankova of Czech Republic and Olympic champion Chiara Leone and Jan Lochbihler of Switzerland, among others. A total of 37 pairs have entered the fray for the competition with the top four qualifying for the medal matches.

In the Mixed Team Pistol event, the Indian pairs will face the toughest competition against the Chinese pair consisting of World No 1 Hu Kai and World Number 2 Yao Qianxun who have medaled in all three previous World Cups this year. The second Chinese pair includes Ma Qianke and Zhang Yifan.

The other prominent pairs include Korea’s Jiin Yang and Suhyeon Hong, Camille Jedrzejewski and Tom Richard Stepanoff of France, Hungarians Veronika Major and Karoly Akos Nagy and Paris silver medalist Nilo Federico Maldini and Vittoria Toffalini of Italy, among others. The competition will see 31 pairs fight for four spots in the medal matches.