It's been a historic haul in shooting for India at the 2023 Asian Games with five more medals coming on Day 6 of the competition from the Fuyang Yinhu Sports Center in Hangzhou.
The women 10m air pistol shooters and the male 50m rifle three positions shooters were responsible for winning all five medals with the pistol shooters first winning a team silver and then Palak and Esha Singh topping the charts in the individual final to bag a gold and silver.
18-year-old Esha has now in fact won four medals at just this edition of the Asian Games.
Next up were the men's pistol shooters with Swapnil Kusale and Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar both setting new Asian and Asian Games records in the Qualifying round as they finished top two to help India win the team gold in the 50m Rifle 3-Positions event. Aishwary then put up a solid show in the individual final to add another silver to his tally.
Women's Pistol Team Start With Silver
India's day at the range started with the trio of Palak, Esha Singh and TS Divya competing in the qualification round of the women's 10m Air Pistol event. The event also acted as the medal round for the team event in the discipline.
The trio were in top form and finished behind China to clinch a silver with Palak and Esha also qualifying for the final. Palak had qualified seventh among eight participants while Esha was placed fifth with 577 and 579 points respectively.
Hangzhou: Indian shooters Swapnil Suresh Kusale, Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar and Akhil Sheoran pose with their gold medal during the presentation ceremony of men's 50m rifle 3 positions team event at the 19th Asian Games, in Hangzhou, China, Friday, Sept. 29, 2023.
(Photo: PTI)
Rifle Shooters Stun Field, Win Team Gold
Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Swapnil Suresh Kusale and Akhil Sheoran shattered the world record, previously held by the United States, with 1769 points to win a gold medal in the 50m Rifle 3 Positions team event.
Swapnil in fact finished first and Aishwary was placed second after the team qualification round with Akhil also finishing as high as fifth. He, however, could not qualify for the final with only two shooters from each country allowed in the eight player final.
1-2 Finish in Women's Pistol Final
It was an India v Pakistan battle in the 10m Air Pistol individual final as Palak Gulia and Esha Singh battled with Pakistan's Kishmala Talat to win gold and silver on Friday.
In the final, the two Indian shooters were in a different zone as the Chinese shooters faded away, getting out of the medals bracket after the first two rounds of five shots each.
Esha zoomed up to the second position after the five shots as she scored 50.8 while Hong Kong's Ho Ching Shing topped with 50.9.
In the second series, Palak shot 50.8 while Esha shot 50.2 to take the lead. Shing of Hong Kong China shot 8.1 and 8.2 in a total of 44.8 and fell behind.
From there the Indian shooters remained in the top two positions. Shing of Hong Kong was the first to get eliminated and was followed by China's Nan Zhao. Vietnam's Thu Vinh Trinh, China's Ranxin Jiang and Chinese Taipei's Wu Chiaying followed suit.
Finally, it came between Esha and Kishmala and the Indian eliminated the Pakistan shooter shot a 9.3 and 9.0 in the final series, succumbing to the nerves and finishing in third position.
Esha, who has a knack for zooming up the rankings in the finals, couple of 9.5s in the final two series as she finished second behind her compatriot.
Hangzhou: Silver medalist Indian shooter Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar poses at the podium with Chinese shooters gold medalist Du Linshu and bronze medalist Tian Jiaming in the Men's 50m Rifle 3 Positions event at the 19th Asian Games, in Hangzhou, China, Friday, Sept. 29, 2023.
(Photo: PTI)
Aishwary Impresses in Silver Run
Wrapping up the day was the 50m rifle 3 Positions individual final with Aishwary Pratap Singh and Swapnil Suresh Kusale in contention. The two had qualified in the top two positions but Aishwary made an early error to slip to sixth position at one point, but he made a fantastic recovery to finish with a silver medal with a score of 459.7.
Swapnil was leading the final with 310.8 points after the kneeling and prone round and in the standing position, he continued to hold the lead till a terrible error made him shoot a 7.6. Following the next few shots, he was eliminated in the fourth position.
The silver medal won by Aishwary took India's total medal tally from shooting at these games to 18 medals.
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