Asian Shooting: Indian men's air pistol team clinches silver

Shymkent (Kazakhstan), Aug 18 (PTI) Indian shooters' quest to better their medal tally at the Asian Championships (rifle/pistol/shotgun) began with the men clinching the 10m air pistol team silver, while Faridabad marksman Anmol Jain missed out on an individual medal in the event, finishing sixth here on Monday.

The men's team, comprising Anmol (580), Aditya Malra (579) and Asian Games gold medallist Saurabh Chaudhary (576) aggregated a score of 1,735 to finish behind China, who took the gold by amassing 1,744 points.

Iran took the bronze, totalling 1,733 points.

In the individual men's 10m air pistol section, Anmol, who progressed into the final in seventh place with a qualification score of 580, ended up sixth in the medal round aggregating 155.1 points.

Hu Kai of China took the gold with a score of 241.6, while South Korea's Hong Suhyeon and Iran's Amir Joharikhou bagged the silver and bronze with scores of 239.0 and 216.8 respectively.

The other two Indian shooters, Aditya (579) and Chaudhary (576) finished 13th and 21st respectively after the qualification round and missed the finals.

Interestingly Amit Sharma, a 20-year-old who started competing internationally at as a junior in 2023, beat the 48-strong field to top the qualification round with a superb score of 588. But since he was competing in the 'Ranking Points Only' (RPO) category, he could not make it to the final.

RPO shooters participate for rankings and cannot advance to the medal round.

Another Indian RPO shooter Varun Tomar shot 584 to end the qualification round in fourth place.

Kapil clinched the individual junior men's 10m air pistol gold with a score of 243.0. He shot 579 in qualification to enter the medal round placed fourth. Another Indian Gavin Antony, who also entered the final, shot 220.7 to clinch the bronze medal.

The trio of Gavin (582), Kapil and Vijay Tomar (562) aggregated 1,723 points to win the team silver behind South Korea, who amassed 1,734 points.

India has fielded 182 shooters across senior, junior and youth categories, which is the country's biggest-ever contingent in the continental meet. Medals are up for grabs in 58 events -- 46 individual and 12 mixed team -- across various categories.

The senior India team had bagged six gold, eight silver and five bronze medals to finish third behind powerhouse China, who topped with 14 gold (total 33), and hosts South Korea, who bagged nine gold (total 24), in the previous edition of the continental event in Changwon.

Overall, India had finished with 59 medals (21 gold, 22 silver and 16 bronze) in Changwon. PTI AM SSC SSC