The 10m air pistol mixed team combination of Saurabh Chaudhary and Manu Bhaker completed a clean sweep at this year's World Cups after defeating the other Indian pair of Abhishek Verma and Yashaswini Singh Deswal 17-15 in the final. They had also won gold in this event at three previous World Cups this year in New Delhi, Beijing and Munich. With their wins, India recorded its best ever medal haul at a shooting World Cup by winning gold in the 10m air rifle mixed team and 10m air pistol mixed team on the final day of competition in Rio de Janeiro on Monday. India ended the tournament with five golds, two silvers and two bronzes.
Earlier in the day, the teams of Apurvi Chandela and Deepak Kumar, and Anjum Moudgil and Divyansh Singh Panwar won gold and bronze respectively in the 10m air rifle mixed team event.
With nine medals in Rio, the Indian team improved on their previous best of six, which they had won in Munich in May this year. Bhaker and Chadhary brought India their fifth gold of the campaign, to go with those won by Chandela-Deepak, Abhishek Verma (men's 10m air pistol), Elavenil Valarivan (women's 10m air rifle) and Yashaswini Deswal women's 10m air pistol).
Bhaker-Chaudhary (394) and Verma-Deswal (386) had entered the 10m air pistol gold medal match after finishing first and second respectively in the second part of the qualification round. In the final -- where the first team to reach 16 points wins the match -- Bhaker and Chaudhary trailed 9-15 at one point of time only to win the next four series, making an incredible comeback to take win gold in the final moments of the match, winning 17-15.
In the 10m air rifle event, Chandela and Deepak beat China's Yang Qian and Yu Haonan 16-6 in the final, thus doing one better than Munich, where they had won silver in the same event behind Panwar and Moudgil. India's second pairing beat Hungary's Eszter Meszaros and Peter Sidi 16-10 to win bronze. Earlier, in qualification, Chandela had led the charge with 210.8 points as she and Deepak scored 419.1 to top the qualification stages. In a field of eight, India's second team of Panwar and Moudgil scored 418.0 themselves to assure themselves of a shot at bronze.
India finished on top of the medals tally at Rio, with their five golds placing them ahead of China, Croatia, Great Britain, Germany and Hungary in the chasing pack.