Tejaswini Sawant: Veteran women’s rifle shooter Tejaswini Sawant and Sanjeev Rajput won the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Mixed Team event at the ISSF World Cup in New Delhi on Friday.
They clinched the top prize while Sunidhi Chauhan and Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar took home the bronze medal. The team of Sawant and Rajput won the gold medal after beating Ukraine's Anna Ilina and Serhiy Kulish in a closely-fought match.
With this win, the Indian shooters took their total medals tally to 23 with 11 gold medals, 6 silver and 6 bronze. The USA contingent is just behind India in the second position with a total of 6 medals (3 gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze).
Tejaswini Sawant
The 40-year-old Sawant had earned India’s 12th Olympic quota in shooting at the 14th Asian Championship in 2019 at Doha, Qatar. The former world champion bagged the quota for this year’s Tokyo Games with a score of 1171. This will be her maiden Olympic appearance, having missed the chance in 2008, 2012 and 2016.
Daughter of an officer in the Indian Navy, Sawant, in 2010, became world champion in the 50m Rifle Prone event at Munich with a world-record equalling score. She was the first Indian woman shooter to win a gold medal at the Worlds.
Sawant has won many medals, including gold at the World Championship, World Cup and the Commonwealth Games, in her kitty. She also became the first Indian woman to win a medal twice in the 50m Rifle Prone event at the Commonwealth Games. The only other Indian to win a medal in this event was Roopa Unnikrishnan.
Earlier this year, the senior shooter also beat Punjab's Anjum Moudgil to win the Women's 50M Rifle 3 positions T1 trials at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting range. “I have medals in every tournament at all levels. The only thing that is missing is the Olympics,” she had said eyeing for the Tokyo Games to start this year after the pandemic postponed her plans for a year.
Feature Image Credit: Sportskeeda
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