Saurabh Chaudhary breaks 10m Air Pistol Jr world record, bags gold medal at ISSF World Championships

At only 16-years-old, Saurabh Chaudhary not only has won an Asian Games gold medal, he also set a new world record at Junior level during the ISSF World Championships 10m Air Pistol event, on Thursday.

India's Saurabh Chaudhary and Arjun Singh Cheema finished first and third respectively to win a gold and a bronze at the International Shooting Sport Federation's World Championship in Changwon, South Korea. Saurabh scored a total of 245.5 points while Arjun put up the total of 218.0. Saurabh broke his own record that he had set up at the Junior World Cup in Germany earlier in the year. Korea's Lim Hojin won the silver medal.

The duo of Saurabh Chaudhary and Arjun Singh, paired with Anmol also bagged a silver medal in the team event.

Chaudhary, son of a farmer based in Kalina Village in Meerut surprised everyone with his maturity to keep calm under the pressure at the recently concluded Asian Games to take India's Gold medal tally up by one more. 

Chaudhary picked up the sport only three years ago. A student of class XI he learnt the tricks of the trade at Amit Sheoran's academy at Benoli near Baghpat, 53 kilometres from Meerut. Whenever he is home, he helps his father in the farming business.

"I like farming. We don't get much time off from training but whenever I do, I go back to my Village (Kalina) and help my father," Chaudhary had said in an interview earlier.

While Chaudhary's fellow juniors -- Divyansh Singh Panwar and Shreya Agarwal, Abhidnya Patil -- are having a great time, with the exception of Anjum Modugil and Apurvi Chandela, rest of the senior Indian contingent has failed to impress so far.

(With Agencies Input)