Meghana Sajjanar's Bronze Propels India to Fifth Place at Shooting World Cup

Meghana Sajjanar secured her first World Cup medal, winning bronze in the women's 10m air rifle event at the ISSF World Cup Rifle/Pistol. India finished fifth in the season-ending competition.Competing in her first World Cup final in eight years, Meghana scored 230.0 to claim bronze. Norway's Jeanette Hegg Duestad took silver, while China's Peng Xinlu won gold with a world record score of 255.3, surpassing Wang Zifei's previous record of 254.8.India's Esha Singh had earlier claimed gold in the women's 10m air pistol event on Saturday.China led the medal tally with three golds, followed by Norway with two golds out of the total ten available.Meghana qualified for the finals by shooting 632.7 in the second qualification rally, securing seventh position. Peng topped the qualifications with 637.4.The final began with Peng shooting a perfect 10.9, while Meghana started at the bottom of the eight-competitor field after the first five shots.Meghana improved to sixth place with a strong second series score of 52.3. She maintained consistency over the next ten shots, scoring no less than 10.2, including a crucial 10.9 on her 12th shot.With individual neutral athlete Mariia Vasileva trailing by just 0.3 points before the 19th shot, Meghana secured her position with two 10.4 scores.India had another finalist in Kiran Ankush Jadhav, who qualified fourth in the men's 50m rifle 3 positions with a score of 590.Jadhav struggled in the Kneeling and Prone positions, finishing eighth with 406.7 points after 40 shots.Paris bronze medalist Swapnil Kusale scored 587, placing 21st overall and 19th among medal contenders. Babu Singh Panwar finished with 583 points.In the women's air rifle category, Olympian Ramita Jindal scored 629.8 for 22nd place overall and 16th among contenders. Kashika Pradhan finished with 626.6 points.