Rudrankksh Patil wins his first title with dominant performance in men’s 10m Air Rifle
Nine months after failing to make the Indian shooting team for the Paris Olympics, 20-year-old Rudrankksh Patil won his first ISSF World Cup title with a dominant performance in the final of the men’s 10m Air Rifle final in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Sunday.
The Maharashtra shooter, only the second Indian shooter to win a World Championships gold after 2008 Beijing Olympics champion Abhinav Bindra, led throughout the eight-shooter final and beat van Peni of Hungary in the gold medal elimination with a score of 252.9.
In a performance similar to the one at the 2022 World Championships in Cairo, Patil was at his best right from the first series of the final. Barring a 10.0, all his shots were in 10.7 or above, including a 10.9 in the first five-shot series.
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Patil led 0.4 over Peni after the first series, in which the Indian tallied 53.2. The second series saw Patil score 52.0 to extend his lead to 0.7 points before the elimination rounds began.
While another Indian shooter Arjun Babuta finished seventh to bow out of the final, despite leading in the qualification round, Patil shot eight scores of 10.5 or more, including two 10.9 and two 10.8 out, in 14 shots in the elimination series to win gold.
Patil’s final round saw him hitting 11 scores of 10.7 or above, with six shots accruing 10.8 and two 10.9. Only Peni could match the Indian in terms of 10.9s in the final but Patil’s greater consency in the elimination round coupled with his better accuracy in the first two series won the day. The only aberration for Patil was a 9.9 on his ninth shot in the elimination series, but the Indian still had a 1.2-point lead after that. Two 10.8s in the final five shots and only one score of 10.2 with other four shots being 10.4 or better settled the deal a difference of 1.2 points.
Earlier in qualification, Patil had finished second with a score of 633.7 while Babuta had topped the qualification with a score of 634.5.Story continues below this ad
Prior to the Paris Olympics, Patil had finished 0.3 points behind Babuta and 1.4 points behind Sandeep Singh to miss the Indian shooting team for the Paris Games.
While Patil had bagged the Olympic quota along with Babuta, the former couldn’t go past Babuta and Sandeep in the trials. Both shooters finished fourth and eleventh at the Paris Games. The shooter had also approached the federation, questioning its policy in a letter, and asked to be considered for the Olympics citing his 2022 World Championship title, but to no avail.
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