In a final, which saw the presence of Paris Olympic champion Nathan Hales, Paris Olympics silver medallist Qi Ying of China and reigning world champion and Rio Olympics champion Josip Glasnovic of Croatia, 24-year-old Vivaan Kapoor won the silver medal as well as the LA Olympics quota for India in men’s trap at the ISSF World Championships in Doha.
Kapoor, hailing from Jaipur, won India’s only fourth World Championship medal in shotgun after Dr Karni Singh’s silver in 1962, Manavjit Singh Sandhu’s gold in 2006 and Zoravar Singh Sandhu’s bronze medal in last year’s World Championships.
Kapoor, who was tied with Abdulrahman Al-Faihan of Kuwait on a score of 29, one shy of the world record of 30/30 hits by Italian Ermanio Frasca, lost in the third shoot-off for the gold.
“Well, it was almost the world title. Shoot-offs, anybody can win but then this silver is special. It was a field, which had the presence of multiple Olympic champions as well as world champions and I admire some of these shooters too like Qi Ying. When you compete against such shooters, you also believe that you too can win. My personal coach Giovanni Cernogoraz is the 2016 Olympic champion and India’s foreign coach Peter Wilson too is the London Olympics champion. And the message always has been to stay calm and focus on my shooting. And I am glad that I could win the silver and win the Olympic quota for India,” Kapoor told The Indian Express from Doha.
Kapoor, who was tied with Abdulrahman Al-Faihan of Kuwait on a score of 29, one shy of the world record of 30/30 hits by Italian Ermanio Frasca, lost in the third shoot-off for the gold. (NRAI)
Hales finished 5th, while Glasnovic ended last.
A junior Asian champion in 2019, Vivaan’s father Vikram runs a carpet export house in Jaipur. He had won a silver in World Junior Championships in 2021 before his rise at the senior level began. A World Cup final silver in New Delhi in 2024, where Ying won the title, was followed by Kapoor pairing up with Neeru Dhanda to win the trap mixed team bronze medal in the ISSF World Cup in Kazakhstan earlier this year. It was India’s second medal in the format since the mixed team trap event made its debut in Tokyo Olympics.
As Kapoor won the silver in Doha, his coach in formative years and India’s high performance manager Mansher Singh too watched from the stands. “Vivaan came when he was 13 and would train till the age of 18 with me. The formative years saw us working a lot on his fitness first and mental training before we concentrated on the technique of trap shooting. We worked on the gun fit, the vision and mounting technique as well as breathing techniques. All these things take a long time to come a long circle and Vivaan would always be patient,” shares Singh.
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On Thursday, Kapoor and compatriot Udayvir Singh Jaijee finished sixth and seventh after a shot-off with seven other shooters tied at a score of 120 each to decide the final eight shooters. In the final. Kapoor would share the lead along with Al-Faihan till the fifth series with a perfect score of 25/25 and eying to break the world record of 30. With the new format seeing two shooters eliminated after the second series, Glasvonic and Uzbek Aazamat Kayumov went out before Jaijee and Hales were eliminated after the third series.
Turkey’s Yakuza Ilnam was eliminated after the fourth series before Ying clinched the third spot while exiting. Both Kapoor and Faihan missed one shot each in the last series to force the shoot-off. Kapoor shot first and both matched each other in the first two shoot-offs before Kapoor missed with the Kuwaiti hitting his target to win the title.
Wilson rates Kapoor’s final performance highly. “We are too good now. When Zoravar won the bronze last year, India had won its first world medal in 20 years. And now we are winning the silver here along with the LA Olympics quota. It was such a strong field with my former trainee and Paris Olympics champion Nathan Hales as well as the world champion Josip Glasnovic and Paris silver medallist Qing in it. Both Vivaan and Udayvir came through a tricky shoot-off and then to see Vivaan win the silver, where he was almost on the verge of winning the title, is tremendous,” he said.
“We had been simulating finals in the national camps and it helped. Vivaan delivered on the world stage when it mattered and now the journey towards LA starts,” shared Wilson while speaking with The Indian Express.
