In a year marred by disappointments, shooter Akhil Sheoran redeemed himself by winning the men's 50m rifle 3-positions bronze medal even as the other Indian participants failed to make a mark in the ISSF World Cup Final in New Delhi on Wednesday.
On a day when both Ashi Chouksey and Nischal could not make it to the women's 50m rifle 3-positions event and Olympian Rhythm Sangwan was unlucky to miss out on a bronze in the shoot-off for third place with a Chinese shooter in 25m sports pistol, Akhil remained calm to win India's second medal in the year-ending tournament with a score of 452.6.
He beat back the challenge from China's Liu Yukun, the Paris Olympics gold medallist, who finished fourth.
India had won a silver medal through Sonam Maskar in women's 10m air rifle on Tuesday.
In a high-quality competition, Hungary's Istvan Peni clinched the gold by a fair distance at the Karni Singh Range and later said that the venue has always been a happy hunting ground for him.
The world No. 7 in the event, who shot a superb 465.3 in the final, had clinched the men's 10m air rifle gold and 50m rifle 3-positions bronze during the New Delhi World Cup in 2017 and came back in 2019 to again take the top podium finish in the 50m event at this venue.
He had won a silver medal in 10m air rifle on Monday.
Akhil later said that the bronze medal had kick-started his preparations for the upcoming competitions, including the Asian Games in 2026.
The shooter from Baghpat had bagged the Paris Olympic quota last year during the World Championship in Baku, but things didn't go according to script after that as an injury in the run-up to the Olympic Selection Trials in New Delhi and Bhopal saw him lose his spot in the Paris-bound contingent.
However, on Wednesday Akhil said he had overcome the disappointment and had started preparing for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
"I had been training rigorously for the finals. Initially, I wasn't getting good scores in the kneeling position today but I knew I could do much better in prone and standing, my strong positions.
"My series in kneeling position went very well and in standing position I got the confidence that would end up on the medal tally," said Sheoran, the World Championship bronze medallist.
Earlier, Sheoran shot 589 to finish sixth in the qualification round and move into the eight-shooter final, while the other Indian, Chain Singh, finished fourth, scoring 592. However, in the final, Singh ended up seventh.
Sheoran said that going forward he will set his goals higher.
"Yes, I want to set my goals higher so that I can push myself more and improve my standard further, shoot better scores and improve the colours of my medals. That will give me a big confidence boost in the lead-up to the next Olympics," he added.
A "minor incident" ahead of the Olympic Selection Trials left Sheoran with precious little time to train for the crucial exercise conducted by the national federation to select the team for Paris.
"I met with an accident just 10 days before the trials. After that, I couldn't prepare and competed in the trials without training much... I couldn't handle that. I had a chip fracture in my left hand and there was a bruise here (he pointed to the cheek bone)," he said.
In women's 50m rifle 3-positions qualification, Hangzhou Asian Games bronze medallist in the team event, Ashi, finished ninth with a score of 587 and missed the final on the basis on 'inner 10s', while Nischal was 10th with a score of 585.
In women's 25m pistol, Rhythm was in a bronze-medal shoot-off with Feng Sixuan, with the Chinese beating the Indian to the bronze medal.
India's Simranpreet Kaur, who also made the eight-shooter final, finished sixth.
Olympians Vijayveer Sidhu and Anish Bhanwala disappointed in the 25m rapid-fire event, ending up seventh and ninth respectively with scores of 581 and 580 in the qualification round and missing the six-shooter final.
Skeet shooter Ganemat Sekhon broke the national record as she marched to her second successive World Cup final with a qualification score of 122 over two days. The 23-year-old bettered her own mark by two points.
She qualified in fourth place for the six-shooter final to be held on Thursday. Former Olympic champion Diana Bacosi of Italy topped the field with a score of 124.
Vivaan Kapoor (120) qualified for the men's trap final in third place, while Anantjeet Singh Naruka (121) and Mairaj Ahmad Khan (119) made it to men's skeet medal round in fifth and sixth place.
