Munich, June 14 (IANS) The Indian pair of Arya Borse and Arjun Babuta delivered a commanding performance to defeat China’s Zifei Wang and Lihao Sheng 17-7, clinching the gold medal in the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team event at the ISSF World Cup on Saturday.

Norway’s Jeanette Hegg Duestad and Jon-Hermann Hegg claimed the bronze medal after a narrow 16-14 win over the USA’s Sagen Maddalena and Peter Matthew Fiori.

The Indian shooters rose to the occasion with superb form in the final, leaving no room for the Chinese duo to mount a challenge. Borse and Babuta had earlier secured their spot in the gold medal match with a qualification score of 635.2, narrowly trailing Wang and Sheng’s 635.9 – a mark that also stands as the world record in qualifications.

In the qualifications, Babuta shot 317.7 while Borse accumulated 317.5 to finish strong. The other Indian duo, Elavenil Valarivan and Ankush Jadhav, finished sixth in the qualifications with a score of 631.8.

Earlier this year, Borse teamed up with Rudrankksh Patil to secure a silver medal in the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team event at the World Cup in Lima, Peru.

This marks India’s fourth medal and second gold at the ongoing World Cup, following Suruchi Singh’s gold and the two bronze medals won earlier this week by Sift Kaur Samra and Elavenil Valarivan in their respective individual events.

India have moved to third spot in the standings, only behind China (six) and Norway (four). China have bagged three gold, one and two bronze while Norway claimed two gold, one silver and one bronze to dominate the standings.

On Friday, Indian star shooter Suruchi Singh bagged a gold medal in the Women’s 10m Air Pistol event at the ongoing ISSF Shooting World Cup on Friday. Suruchi, who shot a total of 241.9 points, outclassed France’s Camille Jedrzejewski by just 0.2 in a thrilling final to bag the top honour. China’s Yao Qianxun finished third with a total of 221.7 to claim the bronze medal.

–IANS

ab/bsk/