India's Palak Gulia and Mukesh Nelavalli set a new world record in the 10m air pistol mixed team competition at the ISSF World Cup in Granada, Spain on April 7, winning gold with a commanding performance against some of the sport's biggest names.
The Indian pair posted a record-breaking score of 487.7, finishing with a 2.9-point lead over the second-placed Chinese pair of Kai Hu and Qianxun Yao — the reigning world champions. Hungary's Veronika Major, a Paris Olympics bronze medalist, and her partner Akos Nagy also fell short of the Indian duo's dominant display.
A Debut to Remember
What makes the result even more remarkable is that Nelavalli, 20, was competing in his first senior international event. The shooter from Andhra Pradesh qualified with a score of 294, posting 11 inner tens — shots landing in the exact center of the target — and then elevated his game further in the final.
"This was my first senior international and I am happy that I did my best," Nelavalli told ISSF TV after the match. "I was only competing with Palak and we were looking at each other's scores and my thought was to be better than her."
Nelavalli has been training under Commonwealth Games medalist Chandrashekhar Choudhary at the Gun For Glory Academy in Pune and Hyderabad for six years. He became the 25m pistol junior world champion in 2024 and won the 10m air pistol mixed team title at the Asian Junior Championships earlier this year.
Dominant From Start to Finish
Under the ISSF's new mixed team final format, the top four qualifying teams compete for medals through a combination of five-shot series followed by elimination rounds of single shots. The format increases drama and gives all four teams a chance at medals, but the Indian pair left little suspense.
Nelavalli opened with a first series of 50.7 to Gulia's 49.4, giving India a 0.4-point lead over China. By the end of the second series, that lead had grown to 2.6 points. After the third series, India held a commanding 4.3-point advantage at 305.4 to China's 301.1.
The elimination rounds dispatched the American pair first, then Hungary, with India maintaining their lead throughout. Gulia, the 2023 Asian Games champion in the 10m air pistol, posted the highest individual elimination score of 31.5.
Partnership and Chemistry
"In mixed teams, the pairings can be different depending on who has qualified for the event from India," Gulia said after the final. "Mukesh's shooting definitely made it a lot easier for the team and he actually shot better than me for most of the series in the final. That was the cherry on the cake."
Coach Choudhary credited Nelavalli's temperament. "Mukesh's biggest strength has been his willpower and the no fear attitude. We had been working on his trigger movement in recent years, and it has helped him in hitting those high scores."
The world record caps an impressive run for Indian shooting, which continues to produce world-class talent through its academy system and development programs. For Nelavalli, at just 20, a debut that ends with a world record and gold medal suggests the best is yet to come.
