Niraj Kumar wins 50 m rifle 3 positions bronze at World Championship, 0.3 short of silver

Niraj Kumar was in silver-medal position until his last shot. The Indian won bronze in the men’s 50 m rifle 3 positions final at the ISSF World Championship in Doha on Wednesday, 11 November, with 346.5, three-tenths of a point behind Slovakia’s Patrik Jany.

Dmitrii Pimenov, entered as an Individual Neutral Athlete, took gold with 362.8. That is a junior world record and two-tenths short of the senior mark of 363.0 held by China’s Zhang Changhong. Jany finished on 357.2 for silver. Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, the other Indian in the eight-man final, placed fifth with 323.7.

A 9.4 at the wrong moment

The official result sheet shows how close it was. Kumar trailed Jany by three-tenths after kneeling and by seven-tenths after prone. The first ten standing shots turned that round: Kumar reached 307.3 and Jany 304.9. Kumar was still 0.7 ahead going into the shot that removed the third-placed man. He scored 9.4, Jany hit 10.4, and the Slovak moved to 346.8.

Kumar had been the best shooter of the morning. He topped the 60-man qualification with 591, made up of 196 kneeling, 198 prone and 197 standing, five points clear of the next three. Tomar was fourth on 586, level with Switzerland’s Jan Lochbihler and Norway’s Jon-Hermann Hegg. Akhil Sheoran, the third Indian entry, was 42nd with 575. In the final, Tomar shared the lead with Pimenov after kneeling at 102.9 but slipped to 205.0 after prone.

Ten medals for India in Doha

The bronze is India’s tenth medal of the championship. With two gold, five silver and three bronze, India are second on the ISSF medal table behind China, who have 26. Kumar, Tomar and Sheoran had already won the team bronze in the same event on Tuesday.

Three places at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics were also at stake in the final. Under ISSF rules they go to the countries of the three highest-placed eligible shooters, with a limit of one per country in each event. The ISSF has not yet published the allocation for this final.

India’s next medal chance comes on Thursday, 12 November. The rapid-fire stage of the 25 m centre-fire pistol starts at 11.30 am IST, with Ankur Goel second on 292 after the precision stage, one point behind Latvia’s Ernests Erbs, and Amanpreet Singh seventh on 288. The women’s trap final follows at 4 pm IST and the men’s at 5.30 pm IST.