Asian Airgun Championships: More Gold & glory

Teenage shooters Manu Bhaker (left) and Saurabh Chaudhary led India's domination on Day 3 yesterday

Young pistol shooters Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary yesterday clinched a gold medal each, their second in the competition, as India continued their domination at the 12th Asian Airgun Championships in Taoyuan, Chinese Taipei.

Manu won the women's 10m air pistol on Day Three of competitions while Saurabh bagged a team gold in the men's event. Abhishek Verma also won individual silver in the men's 10m air pistol, rounding off a profitable day for himself after the disappointments in the mixed events.

The women's pistol team also won a bronze to further bolster India's tally to five gold, three silver and one bronze medals with half the competition still to go. Manu shot 575 out of 600 to qualify in second place and then was involved in a pitched battle with Shing Ho Ching of Hong Kong for most parts of the 24-shot final, before finishing stronger in the end stages. She shot a score of 239 against Shing's 237.9 while UAE's Wafa Alali bagged the bronze. Shri Nivetha of India, who had also reached the final, finished sixth.

In the men's event, all three Indians made the finals. Saurabh topped with 587, while Ravinder was fourth to qualify with 578. Abhishek in fact was the lowest ranked Indian among the eight qualifiers, fifth with 577, but was the only one to land a medal.

Abhishek shot 240.7 and lost out to Korea's Mose Kim by 0.2 points to settle for silver. Saurabh (198.8) went down to bronze medalist Taehwan Lee of Korea in a shoot-off to finish fourth while Ravinder was seventh with 136.3 points. The trio though picked up the team gold over the Koreans with a total of 1742, a clear 12 points ahead of their nearest rival.

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