Ganemat Sekhon Wins Silver at ISSF World Cup in Women’s Skeet While Darshna Gets Bronze

Ganemat wins her second individual world cup medal with silver and Darshna closes with a bronze, her first-ever medal in women’s skeet at the ISSF World Cup in Almaty.

Written by: Arjita Gupta

Edited by: Krutarth Ghosalkar

Last Updated: 2023-05-24 09:05:49

While Ganemat Sekhon clinched silver, bronze was claimed by Darshna Rathore. It was the first time that two Indians achieve two senior individual medals in women’s skeet on Tuesday at the prestigious ISSF World Cup in Almaty. However, the gold was pocketed by Assem Orynbay of Kazakhstan, the local favorite through a shoot-off following herself and Ganemat scored 50 hits each at the 60-shot final. Orynbay shot two targets down already but Ganemat missed one of the initial two shoot-off targets.

For Ganemat, it is her second world cup medal individually and for Darshna it is the first-ever after being in the maiden senior final. Darshana made it to the second spot for the six-woman final earlier on day two of the competition. She scored 120 and equaled the national record while shooting 117, Ganemat took the fourth spot. With 121, Orynbay made it to the top amidst other qualifiers Konstantina Nikolaou from Cyprus, the world number 10.

In the final, however, Nikolaou missed three of the initial four targets and the other five missed one target each. Until the first 10 targets, the most accurate was Orynbay with eight hits. Ganemat and Darshna along with two others followed with seven. Barbora and Ganemat continued to meet the chase with Kazakh Orynbay. After 20 targets, the first to be eliminated was Nikolaou. Also, Darshna was already trying to catch up. Then Ganemat was soon ahead in the scoreboard with 25 when the field went all down on fours.

While Barbora and Darshana tied at 22, Orynbay marked with 24. It was good to see Ganemat in particular having a strong stance with the progression of the match. The two Indians outdid the expectations and were the reason why the Czech was downing at the 40-target mark with 29 in Ganemat’s name. The win was outstanding as it got India a historic double win. With 39 hits, Darshna bowed out and during a shoot-off, Orynbay and Ganemat had to separate.

Also, Maheshwari Chauhan qualified with a score of 108 and ended 24^th, becoming the third Indian to stay stoic and withstanding in the field against the competitors. However, in the men’s skeet, the three Indians could not make it to the finals. The best finisher was Mairaj Khan who was positioned at 16^th place at 119. And with the same score, Gurjoat Khangura finished in the 18^th position, while with 118, Anantjeet Singh Naruka was the third from the end of male players from India.