Sonam Uttam Maskar secured the fifth position in the women’s 10m air rifle final at the ISSF World Cup Rifle/Pistol event in Granada, Spain. She shot 188.5 to finish after the 18th shot, trailing her closest competitors by 0.8 points. The gold was clinched by Wang Zifei of China with 252.9 points, followed by Jeanette Hegg Duestad of Norway with 252.4 points in silver and Han Jiayu of China with 231.5 points in bronze.
India wrapped up the event with one gold medal, courtesy of the 10m air pistol duo Mukesh Nelavalli and Palak. Despite fielding shooters ranked between 4-6 domestically, India made it to seven finals. China dominated the leaderboard with eight gold medals and a total of 13 medals. Sonam qualified for the final in seventh place after shooting 632.8 in the first qualification relay of the women’s 10m air rifle.
In the final, Sonam started strongly with a 10.6 but faced challenges with subsequent shots. She managed to avoid elimination three times, with a notable 10.9 score on her 14th shot. However, despite a valiant effort and a closing score of 10.5, Sonam fell short of securing a podium finish. She was aiming for her second world cup individual medal.
In the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions (3P) qualification round, Niraj Kumar shot 589, while Akhil Sheoran finished 15th with 588 points and Chain Singh ended his campaign at 22nd place.
