Suruchi Phogat makes it a hat-trick of gold at ISSF World Cup in Munich

Pune: At 19, Suruchi Phogat is busy writing history and rewriting it. The Haryana shooter added one more chapter to her career by winning the gold medal in women’s 10m air pistol at the ISSF World Cup in Munich.

On Friday, she made it a hat-trick of individual gold medals and took her senior international score to 5/5 — five medals in five tournaments. She has become the first Indian to achieve this feat. Suruchi made her international debut at the Buenos Aires World Cup in April. She then competed in Lima and now the ongoing Munich edition.

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In the three individual matches played so far, she has won gold thrice in 10m air pistol events.

She also won a gold and a bronze in 10m air pistol mixed competition.In Munich, Suruchi qualified second after shooting a National Record equalling score of 588 (earlier shot by Manu Bhaker). In the final, when all her seven opponents shot below 10.1, Suruchi hit a 10.7 to set the tone for her win.

She was leading till the 14th shot, but lost the first position for a few shots. She then bounced back in the 23rd and 24th shots to take gold with a margin of 0.2 point as she shot 241.9.

The teenager pushed Paris Games silver medallist Camille Jedrejewski to silver (241.7) and Tokyo Games bronze medallist Ranxin Jiang to bronze (221.7).“I am happy but not surprised by my win. I think this is what we train for, to win gold medals,” Suruchi said. When asked if there was any pressure on her after the first two successful editions of the World Cup, she said, “Fortunately, I don’t take pressure of winning medals at all.

I have people around me who try to keep me away from the pressure. All I do is train and focus on each shot as that will help me improve. I don’t think about the results,” she said.Quiz: Who's that IPL player?Former Commonwealth Games champion and now head coach of the pistol team, Samaresh Jung, feels it is the attitude that makes Suruchi such a force. “She has been shooting fantastic. Her technique is good but what is unique about her shooting is her attitude.

I have observed that anything below gold doesn’t excite her. She thrives to win the top place on the podium and it is working very well for her. I am not sure how, but she needs to be protected from undue pressure and expectations from everybody around her,” Jung said. Meanwhile, Paris Games double medallist Manu couldn’t qualify for the final after finishing 25th with 574. Palak was 36th with 570. In the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol event, all three Indians failed to enter the 6-man final. Anish was the top shooter for India in the 18th spot (581). Vijayveer Sidhu (572) and Ankur Goel (571) were 36th and 37th respectively