All four of India’s skeet shooters missed out on making the finals of both the men’s and women’s events, as shooting competitions at the 18th Asian Games came to a close on Sunday.
India ended their campaign at the Games with nine medals – two gold, four silver and three bronze making it India’s most successful spot at this Asiad so far.
In men’s skeet, the Indian duo of Sheeraz Sheikh and Angad Vir Singh Bajwa, were three points adrift of the leader overnight after the first stage of qualification on Saturday. However, with two more qualifying rounds to be played on Sunday, Bajwa shot 47 out of 50 with rounds of 22 and a perfect 25 to end, for a total of 119 out of 125 to finish in 14th spot.
Sheikh came even closer, his rounds of a perfect 25 and 23 took his total to a 120 out of 125, but still short of the final and sixth qualifying mark of 121. If he had got to 121, he still would have had to get into a shoot-off with five other shooters with the same score, out of which two would have qualified.
The leading qualifying score was a high 124 and belonged to Kazakhstan’s Vladislav Mukhamediyev. Kuwait’s Mansour Al Rashidi won Gold in the event with a Games record finals score of 52, while silver went to China and the bronze medal went to Kuwait as well.
In women’s, Ganemat Shekhon shot 112 out of 125 to finish 10th and missed out on the top six final qualifying spot by three points, while Rashmi Rathore shot 111 to end in 12th position.
The squad has now moved on to the next very campaign, the ISSF World Championships which begin in Changwon, Korea from August 31 and is the first qualifying competition for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
