World champion marksman Manavjit Singh Sandhu lived upto his top billing and clinched the trap gold in the ISSF World Cup at Acapulco, Mexico.
Manavjit qualified for the final round after shooting 122 with a series of 25,24,24,25 and 24 and was a point below the qualification round leader Daniele Resca (123) of Italy.
The 34-year-old Indian missed two birds in the final but held his nerve to hit the remaining 16 targets to grab the gold with a point's margin. His total final score was 145 (122+23).
Manavjit had recently won gold in the Commonwealth Shooting Championships at Delhi with a score of 146 (124+22).
"I did not realise that I was going to win until the last shots. It has been a very close competition. I just won by a single target. I shot aggressively up until the end and eventually made it to the top," Manavjit said from Acapulco.
"It was a long trip here from India but it was worth it. I am planning to take part in most of the ISSF World Cup stages, this year," added the 2006 World Championship gold medallist.
Another Indian, Anirudh Singh also impressed by entering his first ever World Cup final with a score of 122. In fact on day one of the qualification rounds, Anirudh had shot a perfect score of 75/75.
In the remaining two rounds, Anirudh shot 24 and 23 to qualify for the finals with a score of 122.
Anirudh registered a total score of 143, which left him fourth with Pellielo Giovanni of Italy. In the shoot-off, Anirudh defeated the Beijing Olympic silver medallist by 2 hits to 1.
The third Indian in the team Birendeep Sodhi shot a score of 120 (25,23,23,24,25) to finish 10th.
The silver was won by Daniele Resca of Italy who shot 144+3 (123+21) while bronze was won by John Mullins of USA with a score of 144+2 (122+22).
In the women's trap event, none of the three Indian shooters could make it to the final round.
Shagun Chowdhary finished 13th with a score of 66, Shreyasi Singh ended 16th with a score of 64, while Seema Tomar shot 63 to sing off 17th.
Chinese shooter Yang Huan claimed the gold with a total score of 92 (72+20).
