First senior World Cup GOLD for @elavalarivan as India wins 3 of the four women’s 10m Air Rifle in all… https://t.co/iXT1aLDaKT — NRAI (@OfficialNRAI) 1567021425000

PUNE: Elavenil Valarivan couldn't have asked for a better colour to open her senior account as the recently-turned-senior won 10m air rifle gold at the ISSF World Cup in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday.Elavenil, who turned 20 last month, shot a brilliant final to pip her teammate Anjum Moudgil and World Cup gold medallist Ying-Shin Ling of Chinese Taipei for the first position. With this medal, Elavenil has become only the third Indian to have won gold in women's 10m air rifle event at the World Cup series. Anjali Bhagwat and Apurvi Chandela have earlier achieved the feat.Elavenil has one more year in the junior circuit (U-21), but there are no junior events scheduled this year.Elavenil shot 251.7 in the 8-woman final. Elavenil's consistency was clearly seen through the scores she hit in the 24-shot final. In the 24 shots, Elavenil's lowest score was a lone 9.6, while all her other shots ranged between 10.2 and 10.8.She defeated Great Britain's Seonaid McIntosh, who scored 250.6 and finished with silver. Bronze went to Ling with a total of 229.9.Anjum had to pay the price of hitting 9.9, 10 and 10 in her 8th, 9th and 10th shots respectively. She finished sixth with a total score of 166.8.Earlier, Elavenil was the top Indian in the qualification round too. In the qualification, she shot series of 105.8, 106.0, 105.4, 103.4, 103.9 and 104.9 to total 629.4 and qualify fourth, ahead of fifth-placed Anjum (629.1). Third Indian in the fray, Apurvi Chandela missed her first World Cup final this year (out of four) as she finished 11th with a score of 627.7.There were two Tokyo Games quota places were on offer, but since Anjum and Apurvi have already won two places, India were not eligible to win any more quota in this event."I was nervous before the match. I was shooting at the range where Olympic medals were decided three years ago. But I calmed myself down and it worked," Elavenil told TOI."Also, this medal is special as I won on a day when my academy Gun For Glory is getting the national award, so it was a cherry on the cake," she added. Gagan Narang 's academy has been conferred with the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar.Elavenil had won three gold at the junior World Cups in 2018 and 2019.