Vivaan Kapoor wins trap silver and India's third LA28 shooting quota

TL;DR in 30 sec

• Vivaan Kapoor won silver in men’s trap at the ISSF World Championship in Doha on 12 November, according to the ISSF.
• He and Kuwait’s Abdulrahman Al-Faihan both hit 29 targets in the final, and Al-Faihan won the shoot-off 3-2, the ISSF reported.
• The silver earned India a quota place for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, its third at this championship, IANS and India Sports Hub reported.
• India were second in the medal table after Thursday with 13 medals, behind China, according to India Sports Hub and IANS.

What happened

Vivaan Kapoor finished second in the men’s trap final at the Lusail Shooting Complex in Doha on Thursday, 12 November, according to the ISSF and India Sports Hub.

The final was decided by a single target. PTI, as carried by The Bridge, reported that Kapoor began with 25 hits out of 25 and led until he missed his 28th shot, which let Al-Faihan draw level. Both men ended the 30-shot final on 29 hits, the ISSF said. In the sudden-death shoot-off, Al-Faihan hit three targets and Kapoor two, according to the ISSF. China’s Qi Ying took bronze with 22 hits.

Reaching the final took a shoot-off too. Kapoor scored 120 out of 125 in qualification, then won a shoot-off among the shooters tied on that score to finish sixth, India Sports Hub and the ISSF reported.

India’s Udaivir Singh Jaijee also scored 120. He took the eighth and last place in the final and finished sixth there with 11 hits, according to the ISSF.

“I feel that it’s a great thing that I could do for the country,” Kapoor said, according to PTI.

Why it matters for India 🇮🇳

The silver brought India a quota place in shooting for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, IANS reported. The ISSF said all three medallists earned quota places for their National Olympic Committees.

It is India’s third quota of the championship, IANS and India Sports Hub reported. Jaypal Malviya won the first with silver in the men’s 10m air pistol on 5 November. Niraj Kumar added the second with bronze in the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions on 11 November.

Kapoor, 24 and from Jaipur, is the fourth Indian man to win a trap medal at the World Championships, PTI reported. The others are Karni Singh (silver), Manavjit Singh Sandhu (gold in 2006 in Zagreb) and Zoravar Singh Sandhu (bronze in 2025), according to the same report.

Background

Trap is a shotgun event, as the PTI report on The Bridge noted. The World Championship in Doha runs from 1 to 14 November, according to the ISSF.

India came close to a second trap medal on the same day. Kapoor, Jaijee and Zoravar Singh Sandhu scored 354 in the team event, level with Poland and Czechia, but finished fourth on countback, the ISSF and India Sports Hub reported. Kuwait won the team gold with 356, according to the ISSF. Twenty teams took part, the ISSF said.

Ankur Goel also won silver in the men’s 25m centre fire pistol on Thursday, and team bronze with Amanpreet Singh and Rajkanwar Singh Sandhu, IANS reported.

After Thursday, India were second in the medal table with 13 medals (2 gold, 7 silver and 4 bronze), India Sports Hub reported. China led with 27 medals and the Republic of Korea was third with 10, according to India Sports Hub and IANS.

Different perspectives

The sources agree on the result, the scores and the quota. Where they differ is in how they describe the quota.

IANS and India Sports Hub call it India’s third quota for Los Angeles. The headline on The Bridge, over a PTI report, calls it India’s first shotgun quota. Both descriptions fit the reports, since the first two quotas came in pistol and rifle events.

Spellings differ too: the ISSF writes Al-Faihan, while IANS and India Sports Hub write Alfaihan. No contrary view was found in the sources.

Open questions 🤔

• Which Indian shooter will finally use the trap quota place in Los Angeles?
• How many more quota places for the 2028 Olympics will India’s shooters win before qualifying ends?
• Will India win more medals before the championship ends on 14 November?

What to watch next

The trap mixed team qualification is scheduled for Friday, 13 November, according to the ISSF’s competition page. The World Championship ends on 14 November, the ISSF said.