Hosts India were given a golden start to their campaign in the ongoing International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Final Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun here on Tuesday when star pistol shooters Heena Sidhu and Jitu Rai combined to win the 10m air pistol mixed team event on day one of the competition. It was a historic Gold in the competitions' first Final itself as this was the first time that mixed team events were officially granted medal status at an ISSF World Cup Final (WCF).
This was the Indian pair's third gold in the event this year, after having won both the test events (Grand Prix status) at two earlier World Cup stages this year in New Delhi and Gabala. This was also Heena's second WCF Gold medal. She had won the individual women's 10m air pistol gold in the 2013 edition. Moreover, this was Jitu's second medal at the WCF level. He had won silver last year in the individual men's 50m pistol event.
In the qualification round where each shooter had to shoot 40 shots across four 10-shot series, Heena and Jitu shot a total of 767 out of 800 to lead five teams into the Final. France (766), China (764), Ukraine (761) and Chinese Taipei (760) were the others to qualify. In the Final, where each team had to shoot 30 shots before the bottom placed team began successively eliminating themselves after the 34th (17th individual shot) shot and subsequently after every 4 shots per team, Heena and Jitu started slowly, but a magnificent couple of 10.9s by Jitu on his 15th and 17th individual shot, meant that they held on to win gold easily. A 10.8 in his 21st individual shot was also crucial as Heena was a picture of consistency throughout the Final. They finished with a combined total of 483.4 after 48 shots.
The French pair of Celine Goberville and Florian Fouquet won the silver with a score of 481.1 while China won bronze with a score of 418.2
Raninder Singh, President, National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) said, "Both Heena and Jitu shot brilliantly. This reiterates the point made earlier during the first World Cup stage here by me that the inclusion of mixed events in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics will give India an edge."