Heena Sidhu, Jitu Rai and Anmol Jain clinched individual medals in addition to three team medals of all colours on the third day of the 10th Asian Airgun Championship in Wako City, Japan to take India’s medal tally to 17.
India got the gold in men’s 10m air pistol team event with Rai, Shahzar Rizvi and Omkar Singh firing on target. 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 took home two silver medals. Veterans Sidhu, Rai amd youngster Jain won the bronze in the women’s, men’s and junior 10 air pistol event respectively.
Two Indians reached the final of the men’s 10m air pistol with Rizvi who topping qualification with a score of 583. However, in the 24-shot men’s final, Rai narrowly pipped Rizvi to get the bronze with a score of 219.6. Rizvi was more than a point ahead till the 18th shot, but two scores of 10.9 and 10.6 by the veteran Indian in the 19th and 20th shot meant that Rizvi bowed out fourth with a total of 199.6, just 0.3 behind. Zhengyang He of China won the gold, equaling the world record in the event with a winning score of 241.8, while compatriot Wei Yang won Silver with 241.1.
While Omkar Singh 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.
In the women’s 10m air pistol, Sidhu was the only Indian to make the final. She began the final on strong note, but a 7.8 in the 11th shot meant she had to be satisfied with a bronze with a final score of 217.2. Paramantham shot 377 to end in 11th position while Srao shot 375 to finish 15th. They won the team silver with a combined score of 1132.
Yukari Konishi of Japan won the individual Gold in the event with an Asian record score of 245.3 while veteran Mongolian Otryad Gundegmaa won Silver with 241.6.
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.
India’s current medal count stands at four gold, six silver and seven bronze medals for a total of 17 medals so far with one more day left in the competition.
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