Mane leads air rifle dominance with double gold as India surges at Lima Junior Worlds

It was double delight for Parth Rakesh Mane as he was crowned junior world champion in 10m air rifle and also claimed a team gold to lead India's impressive performance at the ongoing ISSF Junior World Championship in Lima, Peru.

In a thrilling 24-shot final, the 16-year-old Mane overcame a field oozing class with consummate ease, shooting 250.7 to edge out reigning junior Asian champion Huang Liwanlin of China by 0.7 points.

Braden Peiser of the USA took the bronze medal. Paris Olympic silver medallist Victor Lindgren of Sweden was fourth while reigning double junior world champion Romain Aufrere was sixth.

Parth's own compatriots, the in-form Ajay Malik and the seasoned-at-15 Abhinav Shaw finished fifth and seventh respectively. Ajay went down in shoot-off to Lindgren to finish with 186.7 while Abhinav bowed out in seventh with 144.2.

Mane also won the men's team event alongside Ajay Malik and Abhinav Shaw.

India's third gold of the day came when Gautami Bhanot, Sambhavi Kshirsagar and Anoushka Thakur also picked up the junior women's 10m air rifle team title.

Earlier in the 62-strong qualification round, Malik secured second place with a score of 628.8, followed by Mane in fourth with 627.7, and Shaw in sixth with 627.0 after 60 shots.

Their combined total of 1883.5 easily surpassed teams from the USA (1877.6) and Germany (1873.9) to win the team gold.

Two other Indians in the fray Umamahesh Maddineni (625.5) and Talwar Singh (625.2) finished 13th and 14th respectively.

Three Indians also made the junior women's air rifle final but missed out on individual medals.

Gautami Bhanot finished second in the 90-strong qualification field with a score of 634.7 as China's Wang Zifei topped with a junior world record score of 635.7.

Shambhavi Kshirsagar finished fourth (632.6) and Ojasvi Thakur (631.4) qualified in fifth place. Anoushka Thakur was 17th with 627.5, while Saumya Khedkar was 20th with 627.4.

Gautami then finished fourth in the final, going down to the bronze-winning US athlete by 0.2 after the 20th shot. She finished with a score of 209.3. Shambhavi (188.4) was fifth and Ojasvi (146.1) bowed out in seventh place.

Gautami and Shambhavi, however, combined effectively with Anoushka Thakur to clinch the team competition, bossing USA with a junior world team record score of 1894.8. Norway was third.

Indians also competed in the junior men's and women's skeet competition at the shotgun ranges but couldn't reach the finals.

Gurfateh Singh Sandhu finished 29th with a score of 112 in qualification, while Bhavtegh Singh Gill shot the same score in the junior men's skeet to finish 31st on countback.

Harmehar Singh Lally was 44th with 107.

In junior women's skeet, Mansi Raghuwanshi was the best placed Indian in shotgun. Her score of 109 giving her 8thplace as she missed out on qualification by a point.

Mufaddal Dessawala and Shivani Raikwar shot scores of 98 each to finish in 30th and 31st positions respectively.

With five gold medals till date, India continues to lead the overall medal tally at the championship.