Heena Sidhu clinches Gold at Rifle/Pistol World Cup Finals as a Third Indian Shooter

Heena Sidhu clinches the gold medal in the 10m Air Pistol women's event at the ISSF World Cup Final on 10 November 2013 in Munich. She is the third Indian pistol shooter to win Gold at the World Cup Final. The 24-year-old shooter bagged her first Gold defeating World Champion Zorana Arunovic of Serbia.

Heena gets thumping victory by beating double Olympic Champion Guo Wenjun from China, world champion Arunovic Zorana from Serbia and multiple Olympic medallist Olena Kostevych of Ukraine in a tough competition.

The earlier gold medallists in this competition were Anjali Bhagwat [2002} and Gagan Narang [2008] in small bore rifle shooting.

Heena shot 384 points in the qualification stage and was in third position behind Ukraine's Olena.She is ahead of China's Guo who was placed ninth, and Serb Zorana, who was placed sixth after the qualification stage.  She shot a 9.3 followed by another 9.3 and slipped to eighth position after the first two shots.

She qualified for the finals in the World Cup in Korea and Germany in April and May. Heena's world rank was ninth before this competition.  Four-time Olympian Viktoria Chaika from Belarus clinched the bronze medal with 176.8 points.  

                                     Final Results at a glance

• 10m air pistol: 1. Heena Sidhu 203.8 (384); 2. Zorana Arunovic (Srb) 198.6 (382); 3. Viktoria Chaika (Blr) 176.8 (381).

• 50m rifle 3-position: 1. Petra Zublasing (Ita) 462.7 (585); 2. Andrea Arsovic (Srb) 457.9 (587); 3. Wu Liuxi (Chn) 446.4 (585); 4. Lajja Gauswami 435.5 (581)

                                   Some General Knowledge –

• Heena Sidhu was born in Ludhiana, Punjab.

• Heena Sidhu along with Annu Raj Singh won the gold medal in women's Pairs 10 metre air pistol at the 2010 Commonwealth Games as well. 

• She also won a silver medal in the singles event in the Commonwealth Games.

• In the 2009 Beijing ISSF World Cup tournament, in 10 metre air pistol event, Heena Sidhu won the Silver medal. 

• In 2010 Guangzhou Women's 10m Air Pistol Team event, she won Silver medal in the Asian Games.

Sports Women air pistol. World Cup 11/13/2013 12:39:00 am