Nagoya: Indian shooters Suruchi Singh and Kamaljeet produced an excellent performance to fire their way to the gold medal in the 10m air pistol mixed team event at the Asian Games here Friday, bouncing back in style after disappointing outings in their respective individual events.
The Indian trio of Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Rudrankksh Patil and Niraj Kumar then claimed the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions team silver after logging 1762. China won the team gold with 1766 while Korea bagged bronze with 1751.
Tomar (589) and Niraj (588) also made the individual final of the 3P event in third and fourth place, respectively.
Rudrankksh could not make it as only two shooters from a country can enter individual finals.
The finals, however, didn’t go the Indians’ way as Aishwary finished fifth with 327.6 while Niraj ended at the bottom of the list in eighth place.
China’s Paris Olympics champion Yukun Liu won the 3P gold with a games record 360.5, while compatriot and Tokyo Olympics gold medallist Changhong Zhang claimed silver with 360.2. Kazakhstan’s Satpayev Islam bagged bronze.
Kamaljeet and Suruchi shot a total of 484.6 in the final in which the top four pairs qualify for the medal round. They were followed by South Korea’s Suhyeon Hong and Gaeun Choo (478.0) in second place. The Koreans were 6.6 behind Kamaljeet and Suruchi, which showed the Indian pair’s dominance in the final.
Iran bagged bronze in the event with 415.8.
Aishwary was third with 102.9 points after the kneeling position, while Niraj was placed eighth with 97.1 after 10 shots in the 3P final.
In the prone position, Aishwary shot 102.4 to take his total to 205.3 and was placed sixth, while Neeraj remained in last place after a 103.8 to stretch his total to 200.9.
Aishwary moved up to fifth place after 25 shots with 256.5 points, even as Niraj continued to struggle at the bottom.
Then, a 10.7 kept Aishwary in the hunt for a medal, even as Japan’s Naoya Okada bowed out in sixth with a total of 313.8.
Earlier, Kamaljeet and Suruchi stormed into the final after topping the qualification with a strong performance.
After registering a 196 in the opening series, the Indian pair raced to 391 at the end of second series after scoring 195, placing them within sight of making the finals with just 20 shots remaining. They aggregated another 196 in the third series to take their tally to 587, which included 29 inner 10s.
This was India’s final chance for a medal in the 10m air pistol events after a disappointing campaign so far.
Kamaljeet finished ninth in the individual qualification, while Suruchi was 26th, with neither making the individual final. India also missed out on medals in both the men’s and women’s team events.
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