New Delhi, Nov 9 (NationPress) Olympian Anish Bhanwala triumphed through an impressive total of four shoot-offs to seize the silver medal, marking his first senior individual world championship accolade on the second day of the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Championship Rifle/Pistol held in Cairo.

The 23-year-old maintained his poise during the penultimate series, overcoming a double shoot-off against bronze medalist Maksym Horodynets from Ukraine, before entering the final series to vie for gold. The gold medal ultimately went to Clement Bessaguet of France, who upgraded his previous two silver medals in this event. Earlier, Anish had also navigated another double shoot-off for fourth place against Emanuel Mueller of Germany.

“It is hard to articulate, but the feeling is utterly surreal,” Anish expressed in an enthusiastic post-match interview with ISSF. “I've attempted numerous times before; my preparation was solid, but I couldn't perform during the competition. This time, I trained more effectively, and everything fell into place,” added Anish, who has also secured his spot in the upcoming World Cup Final in Doha next month.

Earlier that day, Anish qualified for the six-man final in second place, scoring 585-22x over two days. He commenced the finals on a strong note with a perfect series, followed by two series of four hits out of five. During the first elimination, Anish was comfortably placed with 16 hits after the fourth series. He added six more hits in the next two rounds, leading to a double shoot-off against Mueller. Anish displayed remarkable composure, hitting four in the second shoot-off. In the seventh series, he matched Horodynets’s score, necessitating another shoot-off where Anish matched the Ukrainian's four hits.

During the second shoot-off, Horodynets managed only two hits while Anish secured four, confirming his silver medal. In the final series, Anish needed a perfect performance to challenge Bessaguet, who had already scored 29, but managed only three hits, sealing the gold medal for the French competitor before his last five shots.

Earlier in the day, the Air Rifle mixed teams fell short of qualifying for the medal matches, with the duo of Arjun Babuta and Elavenil Valarivan finishing eighth with a combined score of 632.3, just 1.6 points shy of the fourth-place team. The second duo, Rudrankksh Patil and Shreya Agrawal, ended in 21st place with a score of 628.8.

India’s prominent trio of Suruchi Singh, Manu Bhaker, and Esha Singh are set to compete on Monday in the 10m Pistol event.