Aishwary claims gold in Asian Shooting Championship, Adriyan wins in junior

Shymkent (Kazakhstan), Aug 24 (PTI) Indian shooter Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar dished out a dominant show to win the gold medal in the men's 50m rifle 3 positions competition at the Asian Shooting Championship here on Sunday.

In the junior men's 3P event, Adriyan Karmakar claimed the gold medal with an Asian junior record of 463.8 in the final.

Aishwary shot 462.5 to finish on top. China's Wenyu Zhao won the silver medal with 462 points, while Japan's Naoya Okada claimed bronze with a score of 445.8.

Aishwary led the field for a major part of the competition.

The 24-year-old Olympian had an excellent outing in kneeling position and though he could not replicate that in prone, Aishwary did enough in the standing round to emerge winner after entering the final phase of the competition with a lead of more than 1.5 points.

The other Indian shooters in the fray, Chain Singh finished fourth, while Akhil Sheoran ended fifth in the final.

Earlier, the Indian trio of Aishwary, Chain Singh and Sheoran bagged silver medal in the 50 metre rifle 3 positions team event.

Aishwary was placed third in the qualification with a total of 584.

This was Aishwary's second Asian title in the same event, having won a gold in 2023 as well. However, he had to settle for the silver medal after losing to compatriot Sheoran at the 2024 edition in Jakarta.

In the qualifications, the seasoned Chain Singh was fifth in the pecking order with an effort of 582 while world championship bronze medallist Sheoran rallied brilliantly to clinch the seventh qualifying spot with a 581.

China also saw all three of their shooters qualify with the other two spots going to Japan and Korea respectively.

The team gold eluded India by three points as their tally of 1747 fell three short of the Chinese total.

Aishwary then bossed the individual final taking a healthy lead after the first five shots of the first kneeling position itself and then going from strength to strength to bag gold, leaving Zhao 0.5 short in the end.

The closest the two came was after the 13th shot when they were just 0.3 apart, but a 10.8 by Aishwary for his 14th got him back to an above one-point advantage, which was enough in the end.

Meanwhile, double Olympic medallist Manu Bhaker, who won bronze medals in both the women's 10m air pistol individual and team events earlier this week, was fourth in the women's 25m pistol qualification round after the precision stage.

Esha Singh was second. Adriyan on target in junior ================ In the junior men's 3P, Vedant Waghmare was second in qualifying with a 582 and Adriyan took the eighth and final qualifying spot with a 576, while Sami Ullah Khan (575), Rohit Kanyan (575), Gaurav Desale (569) and Hitesh Srinivasan (564) all finished outside.

The trio of Vedant, Adriyan and Rohit bagged the team gold with a combined tally of 1733.

In the individual final, it was Adriyan who started strongest, taking a lead of 0.9 from China's Han Yinan after 15 shots of the first kneeling position. Vedant was lying sixth at this stage.

By the end of 10 shots in the second prone position however, Vedant had caught up and was trailing his compatriot by 0.4, but Adriyan posted a strong final series to extend the lead to 1.4 going into the standing position.

Host shooter Oleg Noskov was 0.8 behind Vedant.

A tough first series of 48.6 in standing then saw Vedant lose spot to Oleg momentarily, but he again regained lost ground. Adriyan meanwhile was soldiering on merrily and was 3.2 ahead of his teammate after 40 shots.

A fantastic late surge by Han saw him displace Vedant for silver over the last five shots, but Adriyan was not to be deterred as he shot scores of 10.8, 10.2,10.4,10.5 and 10.5 for a first junior continental title with an Asian junior record to boot. PTI AH SSC AT AT AT