Vivaan, Esha win double gold as India dominate Asian shooting

Indian juniors extended their dominance on day three of the 14th Asian Shooting Championship (ASC) in Lusail, Qatar, picking up 10 more medals including five gold, accounting for 18 of the 23 medals won by the country so far.  Chinki Yadav also kept India’s search of Tokyo 2020 quotas alive in the Women’s 25m Pistol, placing fifth after round one of qualification. Chinki shot an exceptional 292 and will be looking to make the final on Friday to try and get a realistic shot at clinching one of the four available Tokyo berths. Rahi Sarnobat has already secured the other quota place for India in the event in earlier competitions.

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India dominates Asian shooting

The icing on the cake on Thursday at the Lusail Shooting complex, however, was the 1-2 in the Junior Men’s Trap competition where Vivaan Kapoor blasted his way to an individual gold with compatriot Bhowneesh Mendiratta following him whole day to clinch silver. The pair had before that combined with Manavaditya Singh Rathore to secure the team gold in the event as well. Vivaan, who picked up his second and third yellow metal of the competition after winning the Junior Trap Mixed team event on day one partnering Manisha Keer, continued his good form topping qualification with a solid 120 out of 125. Bhowneesh was second with 118 while Manavaditya missed out on the final finishing eighth with a score of 109. Vivaan then missed 5 birds in the final to emerge triumphant with a score of 45 as Bhowneesh missed eight for the silver. Li Siwei of China won bronze.

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Teenager Esha Singh also won a golden double on the day, capturing both the individual and team titles in the 10m Air Pistol Women Junior competition. Hers was also a wire-to-wire performance, topping qualification with a 579 and then winning the finals with a 242.2 finish. Teammate Priya Raghav was third in qualification with 574 and finished in the same position in the final closing out with a 217.6. Jeong Hyo of Korea won silver while Esha, Priya and Yuvika Tomar won the team gold with a total of 1721, which eclipsed both the Asian and World Junior records in the category. Bhakti Bhaskar Khamkar won India’s fifth gold of the day, besting the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Women Junior event with a dominating 453.1 in the final. China’s Yu Jianuan who won silver finished with 448.7, more than four behind Bhakti. Bhakti, Ayushi Podder and Nishchal also won the team silver in the event. So did the trio of Niraj Kumar, Harshrajsinhji Gohil and Nitish Kumar in the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Men Junior event. Niraj also picked up the individual silver.

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