ISSF President's Cup: PM Modi congratulates Manu Bhaker, Rahi Sarnobat and other shooters

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on  Wednesday congratulated Indian shooters for winning medals at the ISSF President’s Cup shooting event in Poland. The inaugural ISSF President’s Cup, a rechristened version of the ISSF World Cup Finals, is an invitation-only tournament featuring the top-12 shooters in each of the shotgun, pistol and rifle categories.

PM Narendra Modi message for medal winners at ISSF President's Cup 

Congratulatory message from the PM Narendra Modi Twitter handle to shooters Manu Bhaker, Saurabh Chaudhary, Rahi Sarhnobat and Abhishek Verma who won medals at the ISSF President's Cup. The PM in his message wrote about the country being proud of their achievements and also wished them for their future endeavours. 

Indian shooters performance at the ISSF President's Cup

India finished the ISSF president's cup with five medals.  Manu Bhaker won two gold medals while Rahi Sarnobat won silver on the final day. Saurabh Chaudhary won individual silver and Abhishek Verma won individual bronze, in the Men's 10m Air Pistol competition.

Rahi Sarnobat pocketed silver in the women's 25m pistol silver event at the ISSF President's Cup which ended in the Polish city of Wroclaw on Tuesday. That effort along with Manu Bhaker's second gold, which she won on the final day partnering Turkey's Ozgur Varlik in the 25m Rapid Fire pistol Mixed Team competition, meant that Indians won a total of five medals in the prestigious year-ending event. Manu had earlier partnered Iran's Javad Foroughi to clinch the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team title, on day two of competitions.
The seasoned Rahi Sarnobat, who has quite the reputation as a strong finals shooter, was in her element again on Tuesday in the women's 25m pistol final. She shot 3s and 4s consistently to climb from fifth place initially to second after the fifth five-shot series.
She maintained that position from there on and was three points behind the gold-winning German Doreen Veenekamp, going into the 10thand final series. She managed two hits to the German's one to end with 31- just two behind Veenekamp.

It was a classy field featuring Rio Olympic champion Anna Korakaki of Greece and Tokyo 2020 bronze medallist Xiao Jiaruixuan of China among others. Manu Bhaker, the second Indian in this field finished sixth with a score of 17. But Manu was not to be denied on the day, as she came back later to partner Turkey's Varlik and win the 25m Rapid Fire pistol Mixed Team by a margin of 9-7 over the Chinese/Estonian pair of Xiao and Peeter Olesk. The Indo-Turkish pair opened up a healthy lead of 6-2 in the early stages but Xiao and Peeter fought back to level the match at 6-6. Manu and Ozgur then went ahead 8-6 before tying the final series at 5-5 to earn the crucial ninth point and seal the deal.

(With ANI Inputs)