Shooting WC: Swapnil wins silver in men’s rifle 3P

NEW DELHI: Indian shooter Swapnil Kusale won silver in the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions (3P) event at the ISSF World Cup in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Thursday, giving the country its second medal of the competition.

The 26-year-old Swapnil went down 10-16 to Rio Olympics silver winner Serhiy Kulish of Ukraine in the gold-medal match. The silver is Swapnil’s first individual World Cup medal. The 12-member India rifle squad now has clinched one gold and one silver medal, moving up to fifth in the table from overnight ninth.

Swapnil played a tremendous 3P match over two days of intense competition in a world-class field. He had finished second to Kulish in the top-eight ranking round earlier on Thursday, before going down to the Ukrainian again in the gold-medal match.

Kulish shot 411 in the ranking round to Swapnil’s 409.1 while Finland’s Aleksi took the bronze medal with 407.8. In the final, Swapnil did put up a fight but Kulish finished strong to take the top spot on the podium. Kulish shot four high 10s in his last five shots of the final to Swapnil’s three low 10s and two 9s.

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