Munich, June 11 (IANS) Arjun Babuta will renew his chase of Sheng Lihao, China’s reigning Olympic champion and world record holder and Sandeep Singh returns to the international fold after his Paris Olympics outing as India continue their quest for coveted World Cup medals on Day 3 of competitions at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup (Rifle/Pistol) on Thursday.

Two more finals come up on the third day of the competition with the women’s 50m rifle 3 positions (3P) final, preceding the men’s 10m air rifle, scheduled in the second half of the day.

Babuta has been in four consecutive finals since the Paris Olympics last year, where he finished fourth. Sheng won that one as well as the previous one at the Lima World Cup, where Arjun could finally crack a medal with a silver-winning performance, finishing just 0.1 behind the champion.

Sheng has also won the ISSF World Cup FINAL event in New Delhi, where Arjun finished fifth, and in the year’s first World Cup in Buenos Aires, teammate Rudrankksh Patil took gold as Arjun had to again finish outside the medals in seventh.

Babuta’s Paris teammate Sandeep Singh has also made his way back into the team and will look to create an impact alongside Kiran Jadhav, who, after not being able to reach the finals of the men’s 3P event, will look to make amends.

In the women’s 3P, all three Indian shooters are in form, with Sift Kaur Samra winning gold in Argentina and Shriyanaka making the final in Lima. Even Ashi Chouksey, the third Indian in contention, shot well and was very close to making the cut in Lima.

Late on Day One, Varun Tomar, who had qualified for the men’s 10m air pistol final with a solid qualifying score of 585, giving him second spot on the board, could not recover from a slow start in the final to eventually finish sixth.

Varun exited at the 16-shot mark with a score of 160.3. China’s Hu Kai won a third consecutive World Cup gold with a score of 242.3. Debutants Nishant Rawat (national record holder) and Aditya Malra shot 582 and 578 to finish 10th and 27th, respectively.

Elavenil Valarivan had earlier given India their first medal of the Munich World Cup, with a bronze in the women’s 10m air rifle competition.

–IANS

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