Indian shooters extended their medal winning run to day two of the 19th Asian Games shooting competition, winning a gold, India’s first of the Hangzhou games and two bronze medals, in the Men’s 10m Air Rifle and the Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol (RFP) events respectively. After the trio of Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil and Divyansh Singh Panwar, broke the world record enroute to the Men’s 10m Air Rifle Team gold with a combined total of 1893.7, Aishwary won bronze in the individual Air Rifle while the trio of Vijayveer Sidhu, Anish and Adarsh Singh, also won bronze in the RFP team competition.
Aishwary, Divyansh and Rudrankssh in-fact broke the Men’s 10m Air Rifle Team world record, which was previously held by hosts China themselves. India now has one gold, one silver and three bronze medals from the FYY Sports Centre shooting range in Hangzhou, after the women’s air rifle team and Ramita Jindal had won a silver and a bronze on Sunday.
Early in the day, Rudrankksh led a tremendous qualification round by all three Indian contenders, finishing third with a score of 632.5, Aishwary was fifth with 631.6 while Divyansh was eighth with 629.6. While the top eight qualify, Divyansh was unlucky to miss out as only two from a country could make the finals.
Tokyo Olympic silver medallist Sheng Lihao of China, topped the 54-strong field with an Asian and Games record score of 634.5, while Krean Park Hajun was second with 632.8. That 1-2 did not change post the completion of the 24-shot final.
The Indian duo began strong with Rudrankksh hitting a 10.6 for his first shot while Aishwary fired a 10.4. After the first five shots, Park took the lead with Sheng moving into second. Aishwary was third while Rudrankksh was in fourth. After 10 shots, while Aishwary held his position, Rudrankksh went down to fifth.
As the second Chinese in the fray, Du Linshu, became the first to be eliminated, Sheng and Park threatened to break away from the field.
After the 15th shot, Aishwary and Rudrankksh were reduced to fighting for third. Then when Mongolian shooter Bayarra Nyantai bowed out after the 18th, a second individual shooting medal for India in two days was confirmed
The Indians had to be separated by a shoot-off where Aishwary’s 10.8 was too good for Rudrankksh’s 10.5. The 22-year-old Olympian had confirmed the biggest medal of his young career and was now aiming for silver.
He went into the 21st shot, 0.7 behind Park, but that became 1.1 after the 21st and a 9.8 for his 22nd put paid to his hopes of a higher medal.
In the Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol, Vijayveer, Adarsh and Anish totalled 1718 over two days of individual qualifications, to clinch bronze behind China and Korea.
Vijayveer was the sole Indian to qualify for the six-man individual final and started with two hits out of five for his first rapid-fire series, even as all others had a minimum of four while Kazakh Nikita Chiryukin, took the lead with a perfect five.
He however kept improving to have three in the next series, four for his third and then finally, a five in his fourth series, made him avoid sixth place, which went to Pakistan’s Ghulam Bashir. He then galloped over Yulianto of Indonesia and finally finished fourth with 21 hits out of 30.
China’s reigning world champion and double Olympic medallist Li Yuehong won gold with 33 hits out of 40, beating compatriot Liu, who finished with 31. Nikita won bronze with 26 hits out of 35.
Next up for the team is the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team competition, where the pair of Divyansh Singh Panwar and Ramita, will fight for a medal on Tuesday. The qualification rounds of the Men’s and Women’s Skeet competitions also begin on the same day.
