Indian Shooter Sakshi Padekar Earns Strong 7th in Munich

Munich, May 28: Sakshi Padekar announced herself on the global stage with a seventh-place finish in the women’s 10m air rifle final at the third leg of the ISSF World Cup. The 22-year-old from Maharashtra qualified third with an impressive 635.1, trailing only the world’s top two shooters. In the final, she showed composure under pressure, opening with 10.5 and recovering from early slips to post series scores of 51.5 and 52.1. The podium belonged to Serbia’s teenage sensation Andjelija Stevanovic, who captured gold with a clutch 252.3, just ahead of Japan’s Nobata Misaki on 252.0. China’s Wang Jifei took bronze while Olympic champion Ban Hyo-jin settled for fourth. Sakshi’s campaign came down to a tense 14th-shot shoot-off against France’s Oceane Muller. Although both finished on identical totals, Muller’s superior 10.7 in the decider pushed Sakshi to seventh. India’s other entrants, Elavenil Valarivan and Arya Borse, ended 19th and 63rd respectively. In the men’s 25m rapid-fire pistol, Anish Bhanwala remains India’s best-placed athlete at 18th, eyeing a place in tomorrow’s final. With one day left in Munich, three additional finals are set to conclude the rifle and pistol programme.