Shooter Tejaswini is now world champ

Rifle shooter Tejaswini Sawant won the gold in the 50 metre rifle prone event at the World Championships currently being held at Munich on Sunday.

Rifle shooter Tejaswini Sawant won the gold in the 50 metre rifle prone event at the World Championships currently being held at Munich on Sunday.

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The 30-year-old from Kolhapur, Maharashtra, thus became the first Indian woman to win a gold in a shooting event, and indeed one of the very few Indian women to bag a gold in any international sporting contest.

Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra and trap shooter Manavjit Singh are the only other shooters to have bagged golds in the same competition — at Zagreb, Croatia in 2006.

Sawant, whose score equalled the world record in her event, was, however, given a tough fight by Poland’s Ewa Nowakowska, with both of them finally tying at 597/600, but Sawant was declared winner on the basis of more ‘inner 10s’ (hitting the bulls eye more frequently).

“I am very happy. I just can’t describe my feelings,” said Sawant after her victory.