After two gold medals on the opening day, Indian shooters picked up three more medals on the second day of the ongoing 12th Asian Airgun Championships in Taoyuan, Taipei. The medals, including one gold, ensured India stayed on top of the standings.
Ravi Kumar and Elavenil Valarivan won the silver in the 10m air rifle mixed team in the senior event before India made it a 1-2 in the corresponding junior event.
Ravi and Elavenil topped the qualification rounds with a score of 837.1 but were beaten in the five-team final by the Korean pair of Park Sunmin and Shin Minki who won gold with a score of 499.6 to the Indians’ 498.4. Chinese Taipei won bronze. A second Indian team consisting of Deepak Kumar and Apurvi Chandela finished fourth in the final.
In the junior event as well, two Indian teams made it to the final round. The pair of Mehuli Ghosh and Keval Prajapati topped qualification with a score of 838.5, while Shreya Agrawal and Yash Vardhan qualified in second position with 831.2. Agarwal and Vardhan turned the tables on their mates in the final, however, piping them at the finish by a margin of 0.4 points.
Ghosh and Prajapati led throughout the final and going into the final six shots had opened up a gap of 1.6 over the other Indian pair. But the eventual gold medallists overturned the deficit finishing with 497.3 to their 496.9 while Korea won bronze.
On Wednesday, besides Saurabh Chaudhary and Manu Bhaker’s gold in the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team, Vijayveer Sidhu and Esha Singh of India also won gold in the juniors.
With five medals won, India will look forward to day three of the championships which has the men’s and women’s 10m Air Pistol events lined up.
