Asian Shooting C’ship: Aakriti wins silver, Anjum claims bronze
India’s Aakriti Dahiya and Anjum Moudgil won the silver and bronze medal respectively in the women’s 50m rifle 3 positions event at the Asian Shooting Championship here on Tuesday.
Kazakhstan shooter Sofiya Shulzhenko set a new world record in the same event enroute winning gold at the Karni Singh Range. Sofiya ended the 35-shot final with a score of 358.2, a whole four points clear of silver winning Aakriti.
Aakriti’s senior teammate Anjum, a world championship medallist, clinched bronze with a score of 340.4. Sofiya’s score also gave her three more records -- world junior, Asian and Asian junior.
Later in the junior women’s 3P final, India’s Prachi Gaikwad emerged triumphant with a score of 353.3. 14-year-old Kazakh shooter Tomiris Amanova won silver with 351.4 while Anushka Thokur bagged another bronze for the hosts with an effort which ended after the 34th shot at 341.1.
Prachi, Anushka and Hazel also won the team gold in the event with a tally of 1748, seven clear of team Kazakhstan. In the senior women’s 3P, the Kazak shooters turned the tables on the Indians by four points, to win gold with a combined score of 1760.
In the final, the three Indians were on top after the first kneeling position with Aakriti in the lead, but Shulzhenko had a strong display in the second prone position to rise up to second.
Thereafter, she was the only shooter to log above 50 points in both the five-shot series of the standing position, to take a decisive lead, which kept stretching till the end as her challengers faded out.
Also on the day, Adarsh Singh of India took pole position after the first precision round in the 25m rapid-fire pistol men’s competition, with a score of 291/300.
Favourite Anish Bhanwala shot 287 to remain in contention for a finals berth while Neeraj Kumar’s 277 meant that he would have to work hard on Wednesday to make the finals cut, which will follow the second rapid-fire round. India’s medal tally currently stands at 39 gold, 15 silver and 12 bronze medals and they comfortably head the standings.
