Hangzhou: Former world champion Rudrankksh Patil along with Olympians Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar and Divyansh Singh Panwar bagged India’s first gold medal at the Asian Games 2023 in the men’s 10m air rifle team event in Hangzhou, the People’s Republic of China, on Monday.
Tomar went on to win a bronze medal in the individual category as well before the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol team of Vijayveer Sidhu, Anish Bhanwala and Adarsh Singh also added a bronze to the tally later in the day.
Medals in the team event were awarded on the basis of cumulative scores of the shooters from each country in the qualifying round.
Competing at the Fuyang Yinhu Sports Centre, the Indian trio in 10m air rifle shot 1893.7 to claim the top spot and shatter the previous world record of 1893.3 set by the Chinese shooters at the ISSF World Championships in August.
The Republic of Korea claimed silver with 1890.1 points while China settled for bronze with a score of 1888.2.
This was also India’s 10th gold medal in shooting at the Asian Games but their first in rifle events.
Patil top-scored for India with 632.5 points and finished third in the qualifying round. Tomar came fifth with 631.6 while Panwar hit 629.6 to finish eighth.
Since only two from a country could progress to the eight-man final in the individual event, Panwar missed out on a place in the eight-man final.
Aishwary Pratap Singh went on to beat Patil in a tight shoot-off for bronze with a total score of 228.8.
Patil was eliminated with a score of 208.7 and finished fourth. China’s Lihao Sheng scored 253.3 for a new world record in the final while Hajun Park of South Korea took home silver with 251.3 points, Olympics.com reported.
In the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol, Indian shooters Vijayveer Sidhu, Adarsh Singh and Anish Bhanwala scored 1718 points to bag the bronze medal and take India’s medals tally in shooting to five in Hangzhou.
Vijayveer Sidhu scored 582 out of 1718 for sixth place in the qualifying round and made the cut for the final. Adarsh Singh, 576, and Anish Bhanwala, 560, finished 14th and 22nd, respectively.
However, Vijayveer Sidhu could not recover from a poor start in the final and scored 21 from a series of six to finish fourth behind medallists Yuehong Li from China (33), Yangpan Liu from China (31) and Kazakhstan’s Nikita Chiryukin (26).
The shooting events at the Asian Games 2023 will be held till October 1. A total of 33 gold medals are up for grabs in rifle, pistol and shotgun categories.
