World University Games: Sift, Ashi finish 1-2 in women’s 50m 3P as India bag two gold

Chengdu (China): Rifle shooters Sift Kaur Samra and Ashi Chouksey won gold and silver as Indian shooters continued to shine bright in the 31st FISU World University Games on the fourth day of competition on Tuesday, winning two gold and one bronze medal.

With these four medals on Tuesday, India and China tied for the first position in shooting with 13 medals. India were on top with eight gold, three silver and two bronze as compared to 4 gold, four silver and five bronze medals.

Sift Kaur and Ashi finished first and second in the Women’s 50m Air Rifle 3-position event while both of them were part of the team that came up with a brilliant performance to win gold in the Women’s 50m Rifle 3-Position on Tuesday.

The men’s 10m Air Pistol team of Arjun Cheema, Varun Tomar and Anmol Jain bagged the bronze medal.

In the women’s rifle event, Sift Kaur was in superb form as she shot 462.9 to finish ahead of compatriot Ashi Chouksey, who shot 461.6 for silver. China’s Wang Zeru claimed bronze with a score of 451.1.

Manini Kaushik, the third Indian in the final, was the first to crash out, after failing to do well in the first two series.

Sift came up with the second-best scores of 154.1 and 166.8 in the first two series with all scores in the 50-plus range. Ashi started the first series with 49 in kneeling and 50.4 and 50.6 in both prone and standing positions. He shot 52.0, 52.6, and 52.5 in the second series as she maintained herself in medal contention. Sift shot 50.7 and 51.5 in the next series while Ashi shot 52.2 and 51.6. Sift managed her upper hand to win the gold medal with Ashi in second position.

The Indian women’s team of Ashi, Manini and Sift tallied an aggregate score of 3527 points with 194 inner 10s in the final to win gold. China took the silver medal with a score of 3523 (173x) and the Czech Republic took bronze with 3501 with 164 inner 10s.

Sift Kaur led the scoring for India with a score of 1180 (66x) with Ashi contributing 1174 (67x) and Manini Kaushik scoring 1173 (61x).

In the 10m Air Pistol Team competition, the Indian team comprising Varun Tomar, Arjun Singh Chema and Anmol Jain finished third with 1730 points and 57 inner 10s score.

They finished behind South Korea and China tied for the top spot with 1742 points, but the Koreans had 67 hits to the inner 10 to 61 by the Chinese, thus giving the Koreans the gold.