Vijayveer Sidhu, 16, shot a gold in the 25m standard pistol event for junior men after combining with Rajkanwar Singh Sandhu and Adarsh Singh to claim the team gold at the ISSF World Championships.
Gurpreet Singh clinched a silver medal in the senior men's standard pistol event but it was India's junior shooters, who continued to hold centre-stage, snaring two gold medals in the ISSF World Championships in Changwon on Friday.
Vijayveer Sidhu, 16, shot a gold in the 25m standard pistol event for junior men after combining with Rajkanwar Singh Sandhu and Adarsh Singh to claim the team gold on the last day of the prestigious International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) competition.
India were placed third in the medals tally with 11 gold, nine silver and seven bronze medals for a total of 27, making this their best performance in the showpiece.
Sidhu, who finished fourth in the 25m pistol on Thursday, managed an individual score of 572 to finish ahead of Korean Lee Gunheyok (570) and China's Haojie Zhu 565).
In the team competition, Sidhu, Sandhu (564) and Singh (559) totalled 1695 to fetch the top honours with Korea (1693) and Czech Republic (1674) settling for the silver and the bronze medals respectively.
Singh managed a fourth-place finish in the individual competition.
In the senior competition, Gurpreet Singh ensured that the contingent signed off on a positive note with his silver.
The former Commonwealth Games gold-medallist fired a score of 579 to finish second behind Ukraine's Pavlo Korostylov, who shot a score of 581. The bronze medal went to Koreas Kim Junhong, who shot the same score as the Indian but had lesser inner-10s to his credit.
India ended fourth in the team event with Gurpreet, Amanpreet Singh (560) and London Olympics silver-medallist Vijay Kumar (560) combining for a score of 1699.
India's junior women's skeet team finished a creditable fourth with the trio of Simranpreet Kaur, Parinaaz Dhaliwal and Areeba Khan totalling 318. None of them managed to qualify for the individual finals.
The country has managed to clinch two Olympic quota places from the first qualifying event for Tokyo 2020 Games.
Anjum Moudgil and Apurvi Chandela are shooters to secure quota places for the Olympics by winning a silver and finishing fourth respectively in the women's 10m air rifle event.
Though the two shooters have secured quotas, as per the stated policy, the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) will take the final call on selection, based on the aggregate scores of shooters (in international tournaments and selection trials) leading up to the Olympic Games.
Image: Vijayveer Sidhu
Photograph: Kind Courtesy/www.indianshooting.com
Srikanth out as India's campaign ends at Japan Open
Kidambi Srikanth crashed out of the men's singles event after losing a marathon three-game quarter-final to draw curtains on India's campaign at the US$ 700,000 Japan Open badminton tournament in Tokyo on Friday.
Just like his compatriots, fatigue seemed to have caught up with the seventh-seeded Srikanth as he squandered a game's lead to lose 21-19, 16-21, 18-21 against Korea's Lee Dong Keun in a duel that lasted an hour and 19 minutes.
Former World No.1 Srikanth, who won a silver at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, had earlier avenged his Asian Games loss to Hong Kong's Wong Wing Ki Vincent with a clinical straight game win in the previous round.
With Srikanth's exit, the Indian shuttlers' campaign at the Japan Open came to a halt as Olympic medallist and Asian Games silver-medallist PV Sindhu and HS Prannoy crashed out in the previous rounds of the women's and men's singles event respectively on Thursday.
In the men's doubles too, the Indians failed to progress with the pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy failing to go past the pre-quarterfinal stage on Thursday.
Manisha enters final of Polish boxing tourney
Indian boxer Manisha (54kg) Friday advanced to the final after upstaging former European champion Viktoria Kuleshova in the 13th International Silesian Championship for women in Gliwice, Poland.
Manisha, who claimed a silver in the world youth championships last month, fetched a 5-0 verdict in the semi-finals.
"Manisha showed tremendous progress in performance and played well as per expectation" coach Rafaelle Bergamasco said from Gliwice.
In the junior category, Tingmila Doungel (48kg) claimed a gold medal after beating Germany's Maria-Elena Avram in the summit clash.
She is a product of the boxing academy established by the legendary M C Mary Kom in Manipur.
Mary Kom (48kg) herself entered the finals of the event's senior competition on Thursday.
Also winning a gold medal in the junior category was Sandeep Kaur (51kg) after defeating Izbala Rozkabzek of Poland in the final.
Settling for silver medals were Neha (54kg), and Dinesh Naik (63kg) after losing in the final.
While Neha lost to Nikolina Boke of Latvia, Dinesh went down to Serbia's Nina Stajkovic.
Rashid, Bhullar T-15 in Korea; four Indians make cut
Indian golfers Rashid Khan and Gaganjeet Bhullar were Tied-15th after the second round of the approximately $ 1,000,000 Shinhan Donghae Open on Friday.
Rashid, a two-time winner on Asian Tour, trying to end his three and a half year drought, shot two-under 69 to take his total to five-under 137, while Bhullar carded one-under 70 to be tied with him.
The Indian duo currently are four shots off the lead at the midway stage.
Khalin Joshi (69) and Shiv Kapur (70) were the other Indians to make the cut, while Viraj Madappa (73), Ajeetesh Sandhu (72), S Chikkarangappa (72), Jyoti Randhawa (76) and Arjun Atwal (78) missed the cut.
The cut fell at even par and 73 players made the weekend rounds.
Rashid had four birdies against two bogeys and Bhullar had three birdies and two bogeys.
Sanghyun Park of Korea carded a three-under-par 68 to maintain his top position. The 35-year-old Park, who ended the opening round with a two-shot lead, had a solid game from tee to green.
Joining Park at the top is compatriot Hyungjoon Lee and Philippines' Miguel Tabuena, who both shot matching 65s at the Jack Nicklaus-designed Bear's Best Cheongna Golf Club.
Five golfers are two shots behind the leaders in tied-fourth, including Zimbabwe's Scott Vincent and Korean Byeonghun An.
Gaurika Bishnoi picks up maiden title of season in Hero WPG Tour
Gaurika Bishnoi completed a massive six-shot win despite scoring a three-over 75 in the final round of the 14th leg of Hero Women's Pro Golf Tour, in Gurgaon, on Friday.
The 20-year-old Rohtak golfer, who was searching for her first win this season, shot 3-over 75 which included three birdies, two bogeys and two doubles.
Gaurika totalled 226 and finished six shots clear of Tvesa Malik, who finally found her rhythm on the final day with a card of one-under 71, only the second sub-par round this week.
While this served her well to get to sole second, she was too far behind to challenge Gaurika.
Amandeep Drall, whose 80-80 in the first two rounds put her way down on the leaderboard, could have challenged Gaurika but a bogey start, a bogey on the Par-5 15th and a triple bogey on the closing 18th saw her finish the final day at 73.
Her total of 233 saw her finish third. Millie Saroha (75) and Afshan Fatima (80) ended Tied 4th.
