Shooting: Rudrankksh, Mehuli combine to win gold in Asian Olympic Qualifiers

Mehuli Ghosh, Rudrankksh Patil (Pic: AFP/File Pic)

The pair of Rudrankksh Patil and Mehuli Ghosh won the 10m air rifle mixed team event to maintain the Indian shooting contingent's dominance in the Asian Olympic Qualifiers here on Tuesday.

Rudrankksh and Mehuli triumphed after prevailing over China's Shen Yufan and Zhu Mingshuai 16-10 in the final. In the 10m air pistol mixed team event, however, India settled for the silver medal with the duo of Arjun Cheema and Rhythm Sangwan finishing second behind Vietnam's Thu Vinh Trinh and Quang Huy Pham in the battle for the top prize. They lost 11-17.

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The team of Rhythm and Arjun topped the qualification round with a total score of 582, finishing ahead of the second-placed combo (580) from Vietnam, but they could not get the better of their opponents when it mattered the most. Earlier in the day, the pair of Rudrankksh and Mehuli was second in the qualification, shooting a total score of 631.3 to finish behind Yufan and Mingshuai, who aggregated 632.3.

A second Indian pair of Elavenil Valarivan and Arjun Babuta finished sixth overall with a score of 629.0. In the mixed team pistol event, the first series was tied and the two pairs split points.

A 10.9 by Pham in the next gave Vietnam an early lead. They would go on to win the next three as well to open up a 9-1 gap in the race to 16.

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The Indian pair of Arjun and Rhythm came back to win the sixth series and tie the seventh and eighth but Trinh and Pham won the ninth and 10th to go 15-5 ahead.

Rhythm and Arjun then fought back admirably to win the next three and close the gap at 11-15, but they lost the 14th series narrowly to go down 11-17.

India also won the junior event in the mixed team air rifle discipline when Isha Anil Taksale and Ummamahesh Maddineni defeated the Chinese pairing of Chu Ziqing and Pan Bowen 17-11 in the gold medal match-up. In the same event, the pair of Abhinav Shaw and Anvii Rathod defeated local favourites Masayyu Putri Fadillah and Paskalis Steven Farrel Saverio 16-10 to claim bronze.

At the end of day two of competitions, India's tally stood at an impressive six gold, two silver and two bronze, for a total of 10 medals.

On Monday, young Indian shooters Varun Tomar and Esha Singh secured two Olympic quota places for the country with gold medals in the men's and women's 10m Air Pistol events of the Qualifiers.

The duo's qualification took the total number of Indian shooters bound for Paris to 15, equalling the highest-ever tally that was achieved in the Tokyo Games.

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