Lima (Peru), Apr 20 (PTI) Paris Olympian Arjun Babuta clinched the silver medal in the men’s 10m air rifle event while Arya Borse finished a creditable fifth in the women’s event in her first ever final of the ISSF World Cup here.

In a nail-biting final, Babuta (252.3), who had finished fourth at the Paris Games last year, lost by just 0.1 points to reigning Olympic champion Sheng Lihao of China (252.4).

Seasoned Hungary shooter Istvan Peni, with over 40 ISSF medals to his name, bagged the bronze in what was a world-class field with a total of 229.8.

The final featured a star-studded line-up, including reigning world champion and Paris silver medallist Victor Lindgren of Sweden, Jon-Hermann Hegg of Norway and India’s former world champion Rudrankksh Patil.

India had a chance for a double podium finish, but Rudrankksh was unfortunately docked his 11th shot by the jury due to a technical infraction. As a result, Indian finished eighth, bowing out at the first elimination stage.

Patil had won gold at the World Cup in Buenos Aires last week.

India’s Hriday Hazarika narrowly missed out on the final, finishing 10th with a score of 629.3.

Good show by Arya ==============.

In the 10m air rifle women event in the second leg of the ISSF World Cup circuit, Arya finished a good fifth in the 10m air rifle women event after shooting a superb 633.9 on Saturday to qualify for the final.

She finished behind the reigning junior world champion and eventual gold medalist Wang Zifei of China, who set three world records on the day..

Arya, bowed out after the 18th shot of the 24-shot final, her score reading 188.1, just 0.1 behind silver winning reigning world champion Han Jiayu of China, who was fourth at that stage.

Wang also led a Chinese sweep of the medals in the event as another upcoming young talent Fan Xinyi, took bronze. She set a new junior qualification record (635.9) as well as the new junior and senior final world records (254.8) in a stunning display of air rifle shooting throughout the day.

That consolidated China’s position at the top of the charts with three gold, three silver and four bronze medals.

India are now placed third in the medals tally with two golds, two silvers and one bronze, putting them a gold behind the USA who are in second position.

A 9.9 at the wrong time ================= Till she shot a 9.9 for her 17th shot, Arya had shot almost the perfect final, doing ever so well to maintain second position despite a rampaging Wang and strong challenges posed by world class shooters like Han, Jeanette Hegg Duestad (a multi-format ISSF World Champion in rifle) of Norway and Eunji Kwon of Korea.

She led after the first five shot series, was behind by 0.6 to Wang after the second and after momentarily going down to third, found herself back in second after the 16th single shot, 1.2 behind Wang and tied with Jeanette, who finished fourth eventually.

The 17th took the Indian down to fourth and as Han and Jeanette fired high 10s for their 18th, Arya’s 10.4 left her just short of Han.

Bhavya has the best chance ==================== Over at the Shotgun ranges where the Trap competitions also got underway, veteran Zoravar Sandhu in the men’s trap and Pragati Dubey in the corresponding women’s event, began with flawless first rounds of 25 each.

Zoravar however ended up with a tally of 70 after three rounds to finish the day at 21st place while his team mates Prithviraj Tondaiman and Lakshay Sheoran shot 69s to end 24th and 25th respectively.

Among the women, it was national champion Bhavya Tripathi who finished best among the Indians with a tally of 69 (24,22,23) which placed her seventh, while Pragati with 68 was lying ninth..

Neeru was further back in 18th with a total of 60 hits. PTI AT AT KHS