India’s complete dominance of the 12th Asian Airgun Championships 2019 continued for the fifth day running with Divyansh Singh Panwar and then Elavenil Valarivan leading a clean sweep of the 10m air rifle gold medals.
India’s have now won 12 of the 14 gold medals handed out so far and their overall tally now stands at 12 gold, four silver and two bronze medals.
Panwar and Elavenil won the 10m air rifle men’s and women’s individual golds as well as the two team golds on offer in the event combining effectively with their teammates to ensure the sweep.
Panwar shot 628.2 to top qualification and lead three Indians including Ravi Kumar (626.3) and Deepak Kumar (626.2) into the eight-man final. In the final as well, Panwar – who is the least experienced international among the three – led from the start to snuff out the challenge of Koreans Kim Dajin and Shin Minki. The youngster shot 249.7 to Kim’s 247.4 for silver and Shin’s 225.5 for bronze.
In the women’s final, Elavenil led from the front to shoot a quality score of 250.5 to emerge triumphant. Host Taipei’s Lin Ying-Shin won silver with 250.2 while Park Sunmin of Korea won bronze with a score of 229.1.
Like in the men’s event, all three Indians including Apurvi Chandela and Meghana Sajjanar had also made it to the finals but finished fourth with 207.8 and seventh with 143.3 respectively.
Indian won the team gold in the men’s 10m air rifle with a combined score of 1880.7 to leave behind Korea with 1862.3 in second place. The Indian women’s team also won gold with a combined total of 1878.6. with hosts Taipei came in second with 1872.5.
The competition concludes on Monday with the junior events in the 10m air rifle.