Prachi Gaikwad and Vanshika Chaudhary bagged gold medals to swell India’s medal tally at the ISSF Junior World Cup 2026 in Cairo, Egypt, on Thursday.
Prachi Gaikwad emerged as women’s 50m 3 positions champion and Vanshika Chaudhary topped the women’s 10m air pistol event. Prachi took the gold medal in the women’s 50m rifle 3 positions event with a score of 354.6 – edging out Neutral Athlete Darya Chuprys by 0.2 points. Elena Kretinina, another neutral athlete, won the bronze.
Earlier in the qualifiers, Prachi had finished sixth to qualify for the eight-shooter final round. Manya Mittal (10th), junior Asian champion Anushka Thokur (12th), Shrivalli Shrivastava (13th), Gursidak Kaur Khosa (15th) and Yugeshwari Bais (21st) missed the cut.
In the women’s 10m air pistol event, Vanshika Chaudhary and Sejal Kamble helped India to a 1-2 finish with scores of 241.3 and 239.6, respectively. Vanshika, who had topped the qualifiers with a score of 579, continued her dominance in the medal round to secure the gold medal.
Sejal shoots down 25m pistol silver as India’s medals tally in Cairo swells to seven
Sejal Kamble pocketed her second silver of the Cairo shooting meet, having also won the same colour in the 25m variant on Wednesday.
Ke Rong Liao of Chinese Taipei took the bronze, denying an Indian monopoly on the podium. Kanak, who was third in the qualifying round, finished one place lower in the final and missed out.
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Prachi, the fourth-place shooter in the qualifying round, was also from India but missed a spot in the medal round as a maximum of three shooters from one federation can contest the final.
Naraen Pranav Vanitha Suresh, meanwhile, bagged the bronze in the men’s 10m air rifle event with a cumulative score of 229.5. Javohir Sokhibov of Uzbekistan won the gold with 251.2 while Cyprus’ Achilleas Sophocleous took the silver with 250.2.
A total of three Indians were involved in the eight-shooter medal round. Abhinav Shaw was fourth and Divyanshu Dewangan was eighth in the final.
Rohit Kanyan, who won silver in the men’s 50m rifle prone event on Wednesday, also finished inside the top eight in the qualifiers but couldn’t compete in the final as a maximum of three shooters from one federation can compete in the medal round.
The four medals on Thursday took India’s tally at the Junior ISSF World Cup in Cairo to 11, three gold, five silver and three bronze, more than any other federation in the competition.
Shiva Narwal had won the men’s 10m air pistol event on the opening day of the tournament to account for the other top podium finish.
