Vivaan Kapoor wins bronze in junior World Cup

Representational image.

Sydney: Teenager Vivaan Kapoor bagged the trap bronze medal in the ISSF junior World Cup, continuing the Indian shooting team's impressive run in the tournament. The podium in the trap event was completed by India's Kapoor, who previously finished 18th at the ISSF Junior World Cup in Porpetto, Italy, his only other ISSF start. The 16-year-old shooter secured bronze with 30 hits out of 40 clays, finishing ahead of Kun-Pi Yang of Chinese Taipei (26) in the final.

Vivaan (113) combined with Lakshay (112) and Ali Aman Elahi (103) to win the team bronze with a total score of 328 behind Australia (331) and gold medallist China (335). In the individual event, Vivaan shot 113 in qualification to qualify as the fifth finalist after coming second best to the silver winning Chinese 4-3 in a shoot-off to determine minor places.

He then shot 26 out of the first 35 birds to edge out Chinese Taipei's Kun-Pi Yang who also had the same number of hits but Vivaan had qualified in a higher position for the final, which ensured his first junior World Cup medal.

Lakshay and Elahi were 8th and 13th in the qualification respectively. Italy's 18-year-old Matteo Marongui finally pocketed the first international gold medal of his career, besting Ouyang Yiliu of China in a shoot-off for first place.

Marongiu - the junior silver medallist at last year's ISSF Shotgun World Championship - climbed atop the podium after an exciting tie-breaking shoot-off for the gold medal. Both Marongiu and Ouyang, in fact, crushed 39 of their 50 final targets, and it took two more for the Italian youngster to secure his first international gold.

In the 50m rifle 3 position event, India's Sam George Sajan Christopher Ramesh (402.5) finished 6th in the final after shooting 1140 in the qualification. The other Indians in the event - Harshit Binjwa, Sartaj Singh Tiwana Mithlesh Babu finished 9th, 12th and 13th respectively.

China won their third gold medal as Zhang Changhong ruled the 50m rifle 3 positions junior final, adding his name to the ones of Liu Yuqi and Duan Yuwei. Finland's Sebastian Langstrom (19) took silver with 448.0 points, while the bronze medal was awarded to Hungary's Zalan Pekler.

India so far have two gold and three bronze medals in the competition and are placed second behind China, who have collected five gold, one silver and three bronze.