Indian shooters bagged seventeen medals including four gold at 10th Asian Airgun Shooting Championships

Wako City, December 11: Indian shooters bagged seventeen medals including four gold, six silver and seven bronze medals at the 10th Asian Airgun Shooting Championships which is being held in Wako City, Japan. Pistol aces Jitu Rai, Heena Sidhu and Anmol Jain clinched individual medals in addition to three team medals of all colours on the third day of the championship. 

India’s Anmol Jain clinched a gold medal in men’s 10m air pistol team event with Rai, Shahzar Rizvi and Omkar Singh firing on target accurately. The women’s team of Sidhu, Shri Nivetha Paramantham and Harveen Srao and the junior men’s team comprising of Jain, Gaurav Rana and Abhishek Arya begged two silver medals respectively.

Meanwhile, Jitu Rai won an individual bronze in the men's 10m Air Pistol and Heena claimed an individual bronze in the women's 10m Air Pistol. Two Indians reached the final of the men’s 10m air pistol with Rizvi who topping qualification with a score of 583 but in left behind against Chinese shooters in the summit clash.

Unfortunately, Omkar Singh also missed out on the final, his 575 points were enough to secure the team gold with a combined score of 1735, six points ahead of second-placed China and seven ahead of third-placed Vietnam.

On the other side, three Indians reached the junior men’s 10m air pistol final, with Jain topping qualification with 577points out of 600, while Rana was fourth with 569 and Arya eighth with 557, which ensured the team silver with a total of 1703 points.

In the final, Rana was fastest of the blocks, but the two Chinese Jiayu Wu and Sihao Tang shot consistently to claim yet another Chinese 1-2 with Wu winning Gold with 241.1 and Tang, the Silver with 237.9. Jain, who began fourth, was briefly in second after the 18th shot, but lost out to Sihao Tang at the end of the 20th, to settle for Bronze finishing with 217.8.

Earlier, in the championship, Ravi Kumar won an individual bronze in the men's 10 metre air rifle while Arjun Babuta won individual silver in the corresponding junior men's event. In the women’s 10m air rifle, Anjum Moudgil won silver.