For a country that constantly produces top-class shooters, it was a deviation that no Indian markswoman had ever won a gold medal at world championships. That evidence was set straight on Sunday by Tejaswini Sawant, who bagged the gold medal in 50m rifle prone category in Munich, Germany.With a score of 597 (100, 100, 100, 99, 99, 99), Kolhapur girl Sawant found herself leveled with Polish Ewa Joanna Nowakowska but topped the dais because of her better tally of inner 10s – 41 as compared to Nowakowska's 39. In the process, Sawant also equaled the world record which was made by Russian Marina Bobkova in 1998.
While national coach Sunny Thomas was pleased about Sawant performance, he said she could have in fact bettered the mark. “In her six series shots, she had 57 10s and three 9s out of which even the two 9s were were at 9.9. It meant she just missed it. If that would have come through, she would have formed a new world record today,” Thomas told.
