Dhanush Srikanth bags double gold at Asian Shooting Championship

Another teenage prodigy on the range gunned down two gold medals on his India debut winning both the individual and team 10m Air Rifle Men Junior competitions on the penultimate day of the ongoing 14th Asian Shooting Championship in Qatar on Tuesday.

Dhanush's journey to success

Dhanush Srikanth showed a mix of super talent and maturity at the Lusail Shooting Complex, Dhanush first qualified for the finals with a relatively sedate 625.3, and then romped home with a 248.2 in the eight-man 24-shot final, leaving silver winner Jiang Xuanle of China a whole 2.5 points behind.

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India’s Shahu Tushar Mane won bronze with a finals score of 226.4, after topping the qualification round with 629.3. Hriday Hazarika, who also reached the finals finishing eighth in qualification with 622.5, managed an overall seventh-place finish.
 
The trio had earlier secured the team gold with their qualification round exploits totalling 1877.1, ahead of the silver winning China and bronze-winning Korea. There was a bit of a heartbreak for India in the Junior Women’s Air Rifle, however, where Shreya Agrawal, after shooting a sparkling 632 to top qualification by the proverbial mile, settled for individual silver in the end, coming second to China’s Yan Jinjing.

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Yan shot 251.8 to Shreya’s 250.6 in the final. Khushi Saini also won individual bronze for India in the event with a finals score of 228.8. The trio of Shreya, Khushi and Aakriti Dahiya had earlier combined for a team bronze in the event with a total of 1877.1. Team China won gold with a new World and Asian record score of 1882.4.

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Angad Bajwa followed up his gold-winning exploits in Men’s Skeet on Monday, with silver in the Mixed Team Skeet on the day partnering Ganemat Sekhon. The pair came second best to China’s Wei Meng and Jin Di in the final. The final score reading 36-33 in China’s favour.
 
In all India have till now picked up a total of 68 medals from the 14th  Asian Shooting Championship, including 24 gold, 22 silver and 22 bronze with a day of competitions to go.

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