India's 50m rifle 3 positions champion Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar won a silver on ISSF World Cup Final debut in Doha on Sunday, completing a full set of medals at all possible world and continental championships in the sport.
The Indian finished 0.9 points behind Czechia's Jiri Privratsky, who shot 414.2 in the final played in the new ISSF format of 40 shots. Olympic champion Liu Yukun bagged the bronze medal.
Aishwary, who is a double Olympian, former junior world champion, and reigning Asian champion, has also won a silver in the World Championship last month.
Aishwary shot 595 in qualification to finish second behind China's Tian Jiaming who blazed the Lusail shooting ranges with a world record 598.
Athlete of the Year Jon-Hermann Hegg of Norway and Hungarian ace Istvan Peni were the other top guns in the top eight, which again saw three Chinese go through.
Aishwary was fourth with a score of 102.8 after the 10 shots in the first kneeling position, shot over two-series of five shots each.
The next 10 shots of the second prone position is where Aishwary found his momentum and climbed up to second on the leaderboard with strong series of 52.9 and 52 respectively.
Privratsky meanwhile was charting a course of his own, 3.3 ahead of Aishwary at the stage. Olympic champion Liu was third with 20 standing position shots still to be played.
Aishwary then outgunned Privratsky over the next 10 shots to bring the difference down to 1.5. After the 31st, it went down to 0.5 as Privratsky was finding it difficult to get into the 10-ring.
Peni and Tian were first to exit the final as Aishwary went into the lead after the 33rd shot.
The young Frenchman Romain Aufrere then lost the battle for bronze with the Olympic champion, as Privratsky caught up with Aishwary and went 0.5 ahead again after the 37th shot with a couple of high 10s, as the Indian faltered a bit.
The gap was however a mere 0.3 ahead of the final two shots and Aishwary fired a 10.1 to the Czech's 10.3 and then a 10.6 for his 40th, putting Privratsky decisively ahead to land gold, his third ISSF yellow metal of the year.
Aishwary too ended the year on a strong note after a barren first half. It was also India's fourth medal of the event in Doha.
Later, world championships silver-medallist in 25m rapid-fire pistol Anish Bhanwala also ended the year on a high with another second-place finish.
Anish's fighting spirit came to the fore once again as he overcame a nerve-wracking shoot-off against reigning world champion Clement Bessaguet of France to remain in contention for the gold medal as the latter took home the bronze.
But Paris Olympic champion Li Yuehong of China proved too good for the Indian, winning gold with a tally of 33 points, while Bhanwala took the silver with a score of 31. Olympian Vijayveer Sidhu took the fourth spot behind Bessaguet.
It was Li’s second World Cup Final gold and fifth World Cup Final medal overall.
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