Rahi Sarnobat bagged India's first gold in ISSF World Cup in Korea, beating Kyeongae Kim 8-6 in 25m pistol final. Rahi is the first pistol shooter from India to win a World Cup Gold.
Rahi qualified for the final in fourth place with a qualifying score of 584/600. With the new ISSF rules in place all qualifying scores were set to 0. In the semis Rahi won a shoot-off to enter the gold medal match against Korea's Kyeongae Kim.
In the race-to-seven points final, a player gets two points for winning the series, while a point each is given if both the shooters are tied.
After two tied series, Rahi was first to get off the block in the third and opened up a two-point lead. But Kim hit back immediately, winning the next two series take a 6-4 lead and push the Indian to the corner.
Facing a must-win situation, Rahi upped the ante while her opponent struggled to keep her composure and lost the sixth and seventh series 3-1 and 2-1 respectively to hand the gold to the Indian.
In an exciting duel she won the race to 7 points in the 7th series 8-6 to win the biggest medal of her career. She is the first Indian to win a World Cup gold in the pistol event and joins a select club of shooters including Anjali Bhagwat, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Gagan Narang, Ronjan Singh Sodhi, Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Sanjeev Rajput who have won World Cup gold for India.
Rahi was the youngest Indian shooter in London Olympics 2012 and this will be her career's highest medal at the World Cup. She won a bronze in 2011 where she qualified for the Olympics.
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