India Surge to Third in Medal Tally With Four More Podium Finishes on Day Two of ISSF Junior World Cup in Cairo
India's junior shooters are making their presence felt emphatically at the ISSF Junior World Cup Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun in Cairo.
After a brilliant three-medal opening day headlined by Shiva Narwal's golden return to international competition, India's young contingent backed it up with four more podium finishes on Wednesday three silvers and a bronze to move into third place in the overall medal tally at the Olympic International City Shooting Range. The day belonged largely to Kazakhstan and Individual Neutral Athletes, who claimed four of the five gold medals on offer, but India's consistency across multiple disciplines underlined the depth and quality running through their 71-strong contingent.
The first silver of the day came from Rohit Kanyan in the 50m Rifle Prone Men's Junior event a discipline that demands extraordinary steadiness and concentration across a long qualification and final process. Kanyan finished with a score of 615.8, just 0.5 points behind Kazakhstan's gold medallist Oleg Noskov in what was an agonisingly close contest. The margin between gold and silver could scarcely have been tighter, and while Kanyan will feel the frustration of coming so close to the top of the podium, a silver at a Junior World Cup in a technically demanding event is a result of genuine substance.
The next medal arrived from Sejal Kamble in the 25m Pistol Women's Junior event, and her performance across the day was one of the more complete displays by any Indian shooter in Cairo. Kamble topped the qualification round with a score of 580 leading all competitors heading into the final before finishing second in the eight five-shot series final with 27 hits. Gold went to AIN's Katsiaryna Ivanova, who produced a dominant display of 31 hits to take the title. Kamble's ability to lead the qualification and convert that into a final medal is the hallmark of a junior performer with real championship instincts.
India then produced their second double podium of the competition following Narwal and Chirag Sharma's gold-bronze combination on day one with Raj Chandra and Abhinav Deshwal both finishing on the podium in the 25m Pistol Men's Junior event. Chandra shot 580 to claim silver, while Deshwal added bronze with 578, with Kazakhstan's Kirill Tsukanov taking gold with 581. The closeness of the scores across the top three just three hits separating gold from bronze reflected the tight, competitive nature of the pistol final and the quality of shooting on display. For Deshwal, the Deaflympics 2025 champion who had narrowly missed a medal in the 10m Air Pistol final on day one, the bronze will have provided significant satisfaction.
In the Skeet events, India's representatives reached the finals but could not quite convert their qualification form into medals. Risham Kaur Guron qualified second in the Women's Skeet with a score of 115 across five rounds before finishing seventh in the final. The gold went to Individual Neutral Athletes' Varvara Zaitseva, who claimed the title with a world record score of 33 hits from 40. In the Men's Skeet, Ishaan Singh Libra reached the final eight with a qualification score of 118 and improved in the final before exiting at the 28-shot mark with 24 hits, just short of the bronze medal position. Britain's Denzil Jago Grose claimed gold ahead of Italy's Marco Coco.
After two days of competition, India's junior shooters have accumulated six medals one gold, four silvers and a bronze and sit third in the overall tally. With multiple events still to come across the remainder of the tournament, the prospect of further medals remains very much alive. For a programme targeting the Junior World Championships in Suhl, Germany in June, the performances in Cairo are providing exactly the competitive sharpness and confidence that the coaching staff would have hoped for.
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