The coveted list of female Indian shooters in the world arena got a little longer on Wednesday, as India’s Elavenil Valarivan grabbed the Gold medal in the ISSF World Cup tournament.
Elavenil, 20, shot her way to the top spot in the 10-metre Air Rifle category (Women) in the tournament by scoring 251.7 points. She fought her way into the top spot with compatriot Anjum Moudgil standing neck-and-neck against Elavenil, till the former was eliminated at the sixth place with 166.8 points.
The competition took place in Rio de janeiro in Brazil and the 10-metre Air Rifle for Women was the first event of the tournament. Seonid Mcintosh from Great Britain bagged the silver medal and Ying-Shin Lin from Chinese Taipei won the bronze and an Olympic quota in the category.
#NationalSportsDay gets sweeter. @elavalarivan wins her first senior World Cup on the day GNSPF’s efforts are recognised through the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar! Thanking the universe! @narendramodi @KirenRijiju @Media_SAI @RaninderSingh @OfficialNRAI pic.twitter.com/tw1Yv1X3bT
— Gagan Narang (@gaGunNarang) August 28, 2019
The ISSF World Cup is an Olympics qualifier tournament whose winners get a chance at taking part in the Olympics. However, since India’s Olympics quota for 10-metre Air Rifle has been filled up last September by Anjum Moudgil and Apurvi Chandela, Elavenil did not get an Olympic quota on the spot. However, the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) will decide on the final Olympics participants based on aggregate scores of the shooters. This is Elavenil’s first senior World Cup medal in her career.
Elavenil hails from Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu and has won a Gold in the ISSF Junior World Cup tournament in 2018. She had narrowly missed a podium finish at the ISSF World Cup in Munich earlier this year by finishing in fourth place. Apurvi Chandela had bagged the Gold in that tournament.
This edition of ISSF World Cup has 541 athletes from 72 nations competing for medals and for the 16 Quota places for the 2020-Tokyo Olympic Games in each of the 8 individual events.