India's Apurvi Chandela won gold in the women's 10m air rifle event after shooting a world-record score of 252.9 in the final at the New Delhi Shooting World Cup on Saturday. With this win, Chandela becomes only the second Indian after Anjali Bhagwat to win gold in the women's 10m air rifle event at a World Cup.
This is Chandela's third individual medal at a World Cup. She won bronze in the Changwon World Cup in 2015 before winning silver at the ISSF World Cup Finals in the same year. Last year, Chandela followed up her gold at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games with bronze at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia. At the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, Chandela won bronze with Ravi Kumar in the 10m air rifle mixed team event
In September last year, Chandela, along with compatriot Anjum Moudgil, became the first Indian shooters to win a quota for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics after they finished fourth and second respectively in the 10m air rifle at the World Championships. The maximum possible quotas that any country can earn is two. India have earned both their quotas for this event, although they can choose to send different shooters for the Olympics.
Chandela had previously finished fourth in the qualification stage. With a score of 629.3, Apurvi finished behind Singapore's Ho Xiu Yi (629.5) and the Chinese duo of Zhu Yingjie (630.8) and Zhao Ruozhu (634.0) -- who went on to create a Qualifications World Record -- as the top eight contenders entered the final.
The other Indians in the fray, Moudgil and Elavenil Valarivan finished 12th and 30th, scoring 628.0 and 625.3 points respectively in the qualification stage.