Debutant Indian Shooter Elavenil Valarivan Clinches Gold in ISSF Junior World Cup

Valarivan was in red hot form and started off brilliantly by shooting 631.4 to create a new Qualification World Record in junior category.

New Delhi: Making her debut in the ISSF Junior World Cup, India’s Elavenil Valarivan Elavenil took Air Rifle gold in Sydney. The Gun For Glory prodigy added yet another feather to her budding career after she shot her way to the victory in the 10 metre Air Rifle competition.

Valarivan was in red-hot form and started off brilliantly by shooting 631.4 to create a new Qualification World Record in the junior category.

She never looked back since and continued her good run into the finals and shot 249.9 to seal her maiden World Cup crown.

Valarivan along with her fellow GFG shooter Shreya Agrawal and Zeena Khitta also annexed the gold in the team event after they shot a combined total of 1876.9 which was again a World record.

“I am really glad with my performance here in Sydney. I have shooting really well and I knew the way I have been performing over the past few months, a victory of this magnitude was around the corner.

“I would like to dedicate this win to my parents and thank Gagan Sir and my coaches at GFG who have been working continuously behind me to make a shooter capable of winning titles at the world stage,” an elated Elanevil said after her heroics in Down Under.

Expressing his delight at his mentees exceptional feat, Gagan Narang, the co- founder of Gagan Narang Sports Foundation (GNSPF) said, “We always knew that she had the potential to become a world beater and her performance today just vindicated our trust on her. I would like to congratulate her for the win and wish her all the best for her future endeavours.”

GNSPF co-founder Pawan Singh said, “It is a great achievement by Elanevil. Her success at the global stage along with our other shooters shows that our pilot initiative ‘The Project Leap’ is indeed headed towards the right direction and over the coming years will yield more and more results.”