Rudrankksh Patil’s disappointing show at the World Cup Final is a reflection of India’s medal-less run thus far in ISSF’s showpiece event in Doha.
World Champion in 2022 and the current World No 8 in men’s 10 air rifle, defending champion Rudrankksh floundered in the limited qualification field of 15 shooters by finishing 13th.
Settling at the bottom of the table wasn’t the only shock in store for the 19-year-old Olympic quota winner. The total of 626.1 is his lowest since he started his international journey in 2021. In 2022 he struck gold repeatedly on the big stage — the World Championship, World Cup Final and World Cup, all in Cairo.
Doha can be termed the nadir in Rudrankksh’s short international career as his previous lowest was 627.5 was at the ISSF Junior Cup in Suhl last year.
In sync with the shooters’ under-par show in 10m air rifle — Olympic quota winner Mehuli Ghosh (628.3) and Hangzhou Asian Games and Asian Shooting Championship bronze medallist Ramita Jindal (629.4) too failed to make the final in the women’s event by finishing 10th and 9th in a field of 16 as India remained medal-less in the competition, which ends on Sunday.
The lone bright spots, if it could be called on a dull day, were Hriday Hazarika (629.4) making the men’s final as the eighth and last name to qualify, and Elavenil Valarivan (630.8) making the women’s final also at the eighth spot.
It wasn’t meant to be India’s day as Hriday, the 2018 junior world champion, fell short and finished seventh with a score of 145.5. Elavenil, a Tokyo Olympian and gold medallist at this year’s Rio de Janeiro World Cup and 2019 World Cup Final in Putian, too could not step up in the final and settled for the seventh spot with 146.0.
Gold in the men’s event went to the celebrated World No 1 Zalan Pekler of Hungary with a score of 251.2 (630.3). The Tokyo Olympian was followed by Serbia’s Lazar Kovacevic with 249.4 (630.1) and Tokyo Olympian Jiri Privratsky of Czech Republic with 229.5 (629.6).
Among women, Tokyo Olympian Aneta Stankiewicz of Poland was the top name with a score of 253.3 (631.8), followed by World No 2 Wang Zhilin (252.6) of China, who topped in qualification with 634.2. The bronze went to World No 6 Jeanette Hegg Duestad of Norway with 230.2 (630.8).