Asian Games: India strikes first gold at Hangzhou in 10m Air Rifle Team event with world record score

B Shrikant
Hangzhou, Sep 25 (IANS) India struck it's first gold at the 19th Asian Games here with Rudransh Patil, Divyansh Singh Panwar and Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar Shooting their way to glory with a World Record score in the Men's 10m Air Rifle Team event on Monday.

The Indian trio won gold with a score of 1893.7 with Rudransh Patil, who won the World Championship gold in the 10m Air Rifle Individual event last year, shooting 632.5, Panwar contributing 629.6 points and Tomar adding 631.6 to the score sa they topped the Team competition with a total of 1893.7. 

The Republic of Korea won the silver medal with a score of 1890.1 and host China took the bronze medal with a score of 1888.2, piping Iran to the podium by a whisker as the Iranians came fourth with a score of 1885.6.

The Indian combine shot superbly for an aggregate score of 1893.7, improving on the World Record of 1983.3 set by the Chinese at the ISSF World Cup in Baku in August this year.

At the end of the first round of 10 shots, the Indians were in the second spot with a score of 313.7 while China took the lead with 315.0. Korea started off with a score of 311.3 with Japan and Bangladesh ahead of them with 313.1 and 313.3 respectively.

The Indians shot 315.9 in the second round and then went from strength to strength with scores of 313.7, 315.9, 318.7 and 315.8 in the next three rounds to finish on top of the standings.

Korea had scores of 316.6, 315.0, 317.1, 316.0 and 313.5 for an aggregate of 1890.1 for silver while China shot 313.1, 315.9, 313.7, 314.1, 316.4 and 1888.2 in the second to 5th rounds to win the bronze medal.

Rudransh and Aishwary qualified for the 8-shooter final in the Individual competition with scores of 632.5 and 631.6, finishing third and fifth respectively in the standings. Divyansh Singh Panwar finished eighth in the qualifying round with a score of 629.6 but could not make it to the final as only two shooters from one country were allowed to compete in the final.

China's Lihao Sheng topped the qualifying round with a score of 634.5 setting a new Asian Games record for the qualifying round in the process.

Republic of Korea's Hajun Park was placed second in the qualifying stage with a score of 632.8 .

This was India's first gold in the Asian Games shooting competition in the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou and the third medal overall on the second day of the shooting competition.

On Sunday, Ramita Thapar had bagged a bronze in the women's 10m Air Rifle Individual competition and along with Mehuli Ghosh and Ashi Choksey claimed silver in the 10m Air Rifle Team event.