Indian shooters make a clean sweep of gold medals

NEW DELHI: Indian shooters made a clean sweep of gold medals in 10m Air Rifle event to continue their dominance at the 12th Asian Airgun Championships in Taoyuan, Taipei.

India have won 12 out of 14 gold medals so far and their overall tally stand at 12 gold, four silver and two bronze medals.

On the fifth day of the competition, Divyansh Singh Panwar and Elavenil Valarivan bagged the 10m Air Rifle men and women’s individual golds. They combined with respective teammates to win two Team gold medals as well and ensured a clean sweep.

Divyansh shot 249.7 to Kim’s 247.4 for silver and Shin’s 225.5 for bronze.

He shot 628.2 to top the qualification and lead two other Indians — Ravi Kumar (626.3) and Deepak Kumar (626.2) — into the eight-man final.

In the final, Divyansh, the least experienced international among the three, led from the start to shut out the challenge from the Koreans.

The Indian trio clinched the team gold with a total of 1880.7 to leave behind Korea with 1862.3.

In the women’s final, Elavenil also led from the front to shoot a score of 250.5 and emerge triumphant.

Hosts Taipei’s Lin Ying-Shin won silver with 250.2 while Park Sunmin of Korea bagged bronze with a score of 229.1.

The Indian women’s team of Elavenil, Apurvi and Meghana claimed the top spot with a combined total of 1878.6. Taipei were second with 1872.5.

In the men’s event, all three Indians including Apurvi Chandela and Meghana Sajjanar had also made it to the finals but finished fourth with 207.8 and seventh with 143.3 respectively.

The competition concludes on Monday with the junior events in the 10m Air Rifle. (AGENCIES)