Asian Shooting: Sandhu sustains India’s gold rush

IMAGE: Manini Kaushik shot 617.8 to take the individual bronze. Photograph: Manini Kaushik/Instagram

Young pistol marksman Rajkanwar Singh Sandhu gave himself a belated birthday present by winning the 25m centre fire event, while former world champion Ankur Mittal netted the double trap gold as India made merry in non-Olympic disciplines at the Asian Shooting Championships in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, on Friday.

India also made a clean sweep in women’s double trap with Anushka Bhati (93), Pranil Ingle (89), and Hafiz Contractor (87) finishing on the podium. The trio also cornered the team gold with an aggregate of 269.

India thus concluded their campaign with 31 medals, including 14 gold, eight silver and nine bronze in the senior category, placing them second behind China, who finished with 15 gold, 12 silver and three bronze.

Overall, India won 103 medals, including 52 gold, 26 silver, and 25 bronze, in the three categories — senior, junior and youth — they participated in.

Sandhu, who turned 23 on August 13, beat back the challenge from veteran country-mate Gurpreet Singh, a Korean and an Iranian shooter to win the biggest medal of his career with a score of 583 (Precision 289, Rapid 294).

This was Sandhu’s first senior medal at the international level after winning a bronze and a silver in the junior world cup in 2018 and 2022 respectively.

Army stalwart Gurpreet Singh (579) finished fourth, while Korea’s Jaekyoon Lee (580) and Iran’s Javad Foroughi (579) took silver and bronze respectively.

India also won the team gold in the event with Gurpreet coming up with a commanding performance for the second day in a row.

A day after he won the 25m standard pistol individual gold and helped the country to a top-podium finish in the team category as well, the 37-year-old Army shooter, along with Sandhu and Ankur Goel, secured another big win in centre fire with an aggregate score of 1733 points.

The Olympian, who came close to making it to the rapid-fire pistol final at the 2016 Rio Games, had a combined precision and rapid round score of 579, and together with Sandhu (583) and Ankur (571), the trio aggregated 1733 points, which earned them the team gold.

Vietnam (1720) and Iran (1700) won the silver and bronze respectively.

Ankur Mittal strikes gold

One of India’s best double-trap exponents Ankur Mittal won gold with a score of 107 with the silver and bronze going to Kazakhstan’s Artyom Chikulayev (98) and Ahmad Alaffasi (96) respectively.

India, however, could only manage a team bronze in the event with Ankur (107), Bhanu Pratap Singh (82) and Harshvardhan Kaviya (75) aggregating 264.

Manini bags bronze

Young shooter Manini Kaushik clinched her maiden individual international medal, bagging a bronze in women’s 50m rifle prone event after guiding the team to silver earlier in the day.

The 24-year-old from Jaipur, who also competes in 50m rifle 3 positions, shot 617.8 to take the individual bronze.

The South Korean duo of Hana Im 620.2 and Eunseo Lee 620.2 took the gold and silver respectively.

Manini had finished fifth in the competition but since two of the shooters ahead of her — South Korea’s Yelin Choi (620.1) and India’s Sift Kaur Samra (617.9) — were competing in the ‘Ranking Points Only’ (RPO) category, the Jaipur shooter took the bronze.

RPO shooters compete only for international ranking points and not for medals.

Manini had scores of 104.0, 103.8, 101.2. 103.3. 103.2. 102.3 in the six series of 10 shots each.

She also helped India to the team silver in 50m rifle prone, a non-Olympic discipline.

The trio of Manini (617.8), Surabhi Bharadwaj (614.4) and Vinod Vidarsa (613.8) aggregated 1846 points for silver, with the gold going to South Korea (1856.8 points). Kazakhstan was third with 1828.2 points.

India took all three podium finishes in the men’s 25m junior pistol event, with Suraj Sharma (588) taking the gold. Abhinav Choudhary (582) and Mukesh Nelavalli (576) won the silver and bronze respectively.

The trio aggregated 1746 points to take the team gold as well, pushing Kazakhstan and South Korea to second and third spots respectively.

Juniors excel

India’s Prachi Gaikwad took the junior women’s 50m rifle prone silver with a score of 616.6. The gold was won by South Korea’s Sehee Oh (618.6), while the bronze went to Kazakhstan’s Sofya Malkina (616.3).

The trio of Prachi (616.6), Anushka Thokur (607.6) and TejalNathawat (599.2) took the team bronze with an aggregate of 1823.4. South Korea, with a total of 1844, took the gold, while Kazakhstan (1830.1) bagged the silver.

Mohammed Hatim won the men’s junior double trap silver with a score of 89, while Manavrajsinh Chudasama (87) settled for bronze.

The trio of Hatim (89), Manavrajsinh (87) and Vinay Pratap Singh (81) won the team gold.