Bhaker beat a two-time World Cup Finals winner and the host country's Alejandra Zavala, with a 10.8 in the last shot of the 24 shot final, to come out on top with a score of 237.5.
For the second successive time, the Indian shooting team returned from the Olympics empty-handed, belying a billion hopes after promising to deliver like never before.
Postponement of shooting tournaments, cancellation of trials and training camps hardly matter at this point to one of India's biggest young achievers in sport, Manu Bhaker, who is hoping to see the world win the battle against the coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic has cast serious doubts over the Tokyo Olympic Games but the 18-year-old, a medal prospect at the quadrennial extravaganza, is currently not thinking about things that are beyond her control.
India's 24-member shooting contingent topped the medals tally in the first Asian Online Shooting Championship.
Aishwary Pratap Singh clinched a comfortable win over Alexander Schmirl to clinch gold at the ongoing ISSF World Cup in Cairo.
For someone who took to shooting just a little over two years ago, winning two gold medals at a global event of this magnitude would easily qualify as some achievement.
Manu won the women's 10m Air Pistol on day three of competition while Saurabh bagged a team gold in the men's event.
However, Manu Bhaker and Abhishek Verma failed to qualify for the final of 10m mixed air pistol event.
The initiative by SAI is part of ongoingefforts of the government to help young athletes balance their sporting career and academics.
Some of the world's elite shooters will transform their living rooms into competition ranges on April 15 for a first-of-its-kind international online championship, the coronavirus lockdown triggering another out of the box thinking. An electronic target setup, beside a mobile phone with internet connection, is all they require to shoot in the championship.
The war of words between the duo started after the 16-year-old athlete took to Twitter questioning Vij about the 2 crore cash reward, the latter had promised after she won a gold medal at the 2018 Youth Olympics at Argentina.
On Sunday, the Women's 25m Pistol Team won a silver and the Men's 50m Rifle 3 Positions (3P) team won a bronze, even as India ended their Paris 2024 Olympics quota quest at two from the championship. Their tally now stands at 12 gold, nine silver, and 13 bronze medals, as per a press release from the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI).
India's Akhil Sheoran secured the country's fifth Paris Olympics quota in shooting after winning the bronze medal in men's rifle 3-position competition at the ISSF World Championships in Baku on Sunday.
India have done reasonably well in the quadrennial continental event, only twice finishing outside the top eight since hosting the first Asiad in 1951.
India's Manu Bhaker and Yashaswini Singh Deswal failed to make the final. The 19-year-old Bhaker, ranked No. 2, was done in by a technical glitch involving her gun after an impressive start saw her take one of the places in the top eight.
Manu Baker won two gold medals in as many days on a World Cup debut
India opened its medal account with a gold each in the 10m Air Rifle Mixed and 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team events on the third day of competitions at the ISSF Shooting World Cup.
A summary of Indian athletes' showing atthe Olympic Games in Tokyo on Sunday.
Gagan Narang, Jitu Rai and young Mehuli Ghosh failed to make the Indian shooting squad for the upcoming Asian Games, even as a few unheralded faces were picked for the quadrennial extravaganza, starting in Indonesia, from August 18.
Olympic-bound Rahi Sarnobat displayed sensational form to clinch the women's 25m pistol gold medal at the ISSF Shooting World Cup in Osijek on Monday but teen sensation Manu Bhaker ended seventh in the same event.
India clinch both ISSF President's Trophies
"The unfair and discriminatory" rules have drawn sharp criticism from the Indian Olympic Association, which has written to the Games' organising committee requesting it to ensure that mechanisms to prevent COVID-19 do not have any "adverse and detrimental impact" on performance of athletes.
Elavenil Valarivan and Anish Bhanwala, two of India's finest young shooters, were on Friday named in a 34-member core group for the Tokyo Olympics. The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) released the list of shooters who will be training separately for the quadrennial sporting extravaganza, scheduled to be held next summer after the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the Games back by a year.
The return of shooting, which was controversially dropped from the Birmingham CWG earlier this year, is a welcome development for India.
The NRAI said that it made arrangements for a chartered flight for the entire squad to fly to Zagreb
The abundance of talent is complemented by a confident approach which the likes of Manu Bhaker, Mehuli Ghosh, Anish Bhanwala and Anjum Moudgil will display at the Games.
'This was due to some issue over time slots as athletes from all competing nations train at the same venue'
Two-time Olympic champion Vincent Hancock of the USA won the men's skeet competition, the concluding event of the year's first International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup.
Among other Indians in the field, Sanskar Havelia was 11th with a score of 1160, Pankaj Mukheja 15th with 1157, Sartaj Tiwana 16th with 1157 and Gurman Singh finished 22nd with a score of 1153.
India's tally in the premier tournament is 32 medals, including 12 gold, eight silver and 12 bronze.
One of India's strongest Olympic medal hopes, ace shooter Manu Bhaker feels preparations 'cannot get better' than the ongoing training-cum-competition tour of Croatia as she works on her consistency ahead of the Tokyo Games.
Then, in the 10m air pistol mixed team competitions, India's top pair comprising Manu Bhaker and Chaudhary too came overall second among 43 pairs, shooting a combined score of 580 out of a possible 600.
The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) has received a request from the chief coaches in rifle, pistol and shotgun disciplines to organise a one-month camp for the Olympic core group to ensure better preparation.
How athletes have strived for achieving greatness during extraordinary times.
India topped the medals tally ahead of hosts China (2 gold, 2 silver, 1 bronze), who won five medals in total.
The boxers say they are seeing a focus on the players and their needs for the first time in years
The Indian trio shot a total of 17 to beat Poland's Joanna Iwona Wawrzonowska, Julita Borek and Agnieszka Korejwo who scored 7 at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range.
Shooting has provided some rare Olympic joy for India
Vinesh, Dutee, Bhaker also among nominees for 'BBC Indian Sportswoman of the Year'.
The 16-year-old Indian bested China's Qin Sihang and Thailand's Kanyakorn Hirunphoem, who respectively took silver and bronze in the pistol event, the tournament's final day.
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