CAIRO: Indian shooter Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil won the gold medal in the individual men's 10m air rifle at the ISSF Rifle/Pistol World Championship 2022 in Cairo, Egypt after pulling off a dramatic 17-15 victory over Italy's Danilo Dennis Sollazzo in the final.
With this victory, the 18-year-old Patil also secured a quota place for India for the Paris 2024 Olympics. This is India's second quota in shooting for the Summer Games after trap shooter Bhowneesh Mendiratta, who had won the first in the men's trap at the Shotgun World Championships in Osijek, Croatia.
Silver medallist at the Junior World Championships in Lima last year and a gold medallist at the Junior World Cup in Suhl earlier this year, this was Rudrankksh's first medal of any hue at the senior level. He had broken through to the senior squad in the beginning of the year and had registered seventh and 11th-place finishes in the Baku and Cairo World Cups earlier. In the process, he also emulated Abhinav Bindra -- India's first individual Olympic gold medallist -- as a world champion in men's air Rifle. The legendary Indian had won the crown in the same event in Zagreb in 2006.
Rudrankksh was detailed in the second qualification relay on the day and when he took his start, teammate Kiran Ankush Jadhav of the Indian Navy had already logged an impressive 630.6 in the first relay to lie third. IANS
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