Although it will be remembered mostly for the controversy over an non-admission of two Pakistani shooters, the first ISSF World Cup of 2019 also produced four world records and three wins each for host India and Hungary.
The world records:
● Men’s 10 m Air Pistol: India’s 16-year-old Chaudhary Saurabh, the 2018 Youth Olympic Games champ, compiled a score of 245.0, eclipsing the 243.6 score from Ukraine’s Oleh Omelchuk from 2018.
● Women’s 25 m Pistol: Hungary’s Veronika Major hit 40 targets out of 50 to break Greece’s Anna Korakaki’s mark of 39, set in winning the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.
● Women’s 10 m Air Rifle: Apurvi Chandela (IND) shot 252.9 and broke the 252.4 total by China’s Ruozhu Zhao from 2018. Zhao finished second.
● Mixed 10 m Air Rifle: Ruozhu Zhao and Yukun Liu (CHN) shot 503.6, breaking the 502.0 total by China’s Hong Xu and Keduo Chen in 2018.
Saurabh and Manu Bhaker teamed up to win the 10 m Air Pistol for India’s third victory, and Major was the only double winner, in the 10 m Air Pistol and 25 m Pistol. Istvan Peni won Hungary’s third gold, in the 50 m Rifle/3 Positions.
China won the most medals, with 10, but managed only the one gold, in the Mixed 10 m Air Rifle.
A huge entry total of 898 competed in the World Cup, but it was the two who didn’t that unfortunately made most of the news. Summaries:
ISSF World Cup
New Delhi (IND) ~ 20-28 February 2019
(Full results here)
Men
10 m Air Pistol: 1. Chaudhary Saurabh (IND), 245.0 (World Record; old, 243.6, Oleh Omelchuk (UKR), 2018); 2. Damir Mikec (SRB), 239.3; 3. Wei Pang (CHN), 215.2.
25m Rapid-Fire Pistol: 1. Christian Reitz (GER), 35; 2. Junmin Lin (CHN), 31; 3. Junhong Kim (KOR), 22.
10 m Air Rifle: 1. Sergey Kamenskoiy (RUS), 249.4; 2. Yukun Liu (CHN), 247.0; 3. Zicheng Hui (CHN), 225.9.
50 m Rifle/3 Positions: 1. Istvan Peni (HUN), 459.1; 2. Sergey Kaminskiy (RUS), 459.0; 3. Marco Di Nicolo (ITA), 444.5.
Women
10 m Air Pistol:1. Veronika Major (HUN), 245.1; 2. Chia Ying Wu (TPE), 238.4; 3. Bomi Kim (KOR), 218.3.
25 m Pistol: 1. Major (HUN), 40 (World Record; old, 39, Anna Korikaki (GRE), 2016); 2. Jingjing Zhang (CHN), 33; 3. Haniyeh Rostamiyan (IRI), 30.
10 m Air Rifle: 1. Apurvi Chandela (IND), 252.9 (World Record; old, 252.4, Ruozhu Zhao (CHN), 2018); 2. Ruozhu Zhao (CHN), 251.8; 3. Hong Xu (CHN), 230.4.
50 m Rifle/3 Positions: 1. Nina Christen (SUI), 457.1; 2. Mengyao Shi (CHN), 456.6; 3. Yelizaveta Korol (KAZ), 445.7.
Mixed
10 m Air Pistol: 1. Manu Bhaker/Chaudhary Saurabh (IND), 483.4; 2. Ranxin Jiang/Bowen Zhang (CHN), 477.7; 3. Min-Jung Kim/Dae-Hun Park (KOR), 418.8.
10 m Air Rifle: 1. Ruozhu Zhao/Yukun Liu (CHN), 503.6 (World Record; old, 502.0, Hong Xu/Keduo Chen (CHN), 2018); 2. Laura-Georgeta Coman/Alin George Moldoveanu (ROU), 496.2; 3. Ji-Hyeon Keum/Byong-Gil Choo (KOR), 433.4.
