Teen shooter Saurabh Chaudhary claimed the silver medal in men’s 10m air pistol event to continue India’s surge at the 14th Asian Championship in Doha on Monday.
The 17-year-old shot 244.5 to finish second on the podium behind North Korea’s Kim Song Guk, who won the gold with a world record 246.5. Incidentally, the record he broke belonged to the Chaudhary who had shot 246.3 at an ISSF World Cup.
Iran’s Foroughi Javed bagged the bronze with a score of 221.8 at the Lusail Shooting Complex.
With 583, both Chaudhary and Abhishek Verma had qualified for the final in seventh and sixth place, respectively. However, Verma finished in the eight-man final, having managed 181.5.
Both Chaudhary and Verma had already secured their Olympic quotas in the earlier competitions, making it a maximum of two for India.
Chaudhary, a World Cup and Asian Games gold medallist, had a great start to the final and had a series of 10 and above scores but the North Korean raced away in the latter stages.
The Olympic quotas from this competition went to Iran, North Korea and Pakistan as India and China had already secured the maximum two quotas each.
With PTI Inputs