No stopping these young starts! Shooter Mehuli Ghosh bags silver, Apurvi Chandela gets bronze at Commonwealth

Gold Coast, April 9: Shooting high grabbing gold, young Mehuli Ghosh settled for the silver medal after forcing a shoot-off in the women's 10m air rifle event with a perfect final shot of 10.9 while Apurvi Chandela secured bronze in the Commonwealth Games today.

The 17-year Ghosh shot an excellent 10.9 to take the finals into a shoot-ff with Singapore's Martina Lindsay Veloso, the eventual gold medallist with a games record score of 247.2. Ghosh also aggregated a record 247.2 but a 9.9 in the shoot-off put paid to her hopes of claiming the top prize, as Veloso shot 10.3.

 

Defending champions Apurvi Chandela totalled 225.3 to finish third on the podium. Chandela had earlier smashed her own Commonwealth Games qualifying record from four years back by scoring 423.2.

 

Ghosh, a bronze medallist in her maiden ISSF World Cup outing in Mexico last month, produced a better performance to topple her more experienced compatriot.

In an excruciating last few moments of the eight-member final, the 17-year-old Mehuli surpassed Apurvi and engaged in a shoot-off with Singapore’s Veloso once the two shooters finished level on 247.2. Veloso’s final shot was worth 10.3, while Mehuli’s was 9.9. It is an extremely satisfying performance from the young Bengal shooter in her first appearance at the Commonwealth Games.