India's Shooting Stars Shine: Gold & Silver in 10m Air Rifle at Asian Championships

India ended day three of competition with six gold, three silver and one bronze to take their medal tally to a total of 26 medals, including 16 gold, eight silver and two bronze, according to a release.

The mixed team pairs of Mukesh Nelavalli and Vanshika Chaudhary and Girish Gupta and Shiksha Saran secured gold in the 10m Air Pistol junior and youth mixed team events, respectively, to start off India's medal haul earlier in the day.

Rudrankksh and Arjun started their finals slowly and were placed outside the medal places after the first series of shots. Rudrankksh got hold of momentum from the second series and took the lead in the 16th shot, maintaining it to the end to secure his first-ever Asian Championship medal. Arjun also climbed to the second spot at the end of the 16th shot. Both Indians maintained their positions on top from then on, with Rudrankksh finishing with a final score of 251.9, 1.2 points more than Arjun, who finished on 250.7. Japan's Naoya Okada, who was leading the field until the 16th shot, took bronze with a score of 229.3.

The other Indian in the final, Vishal Singh, finished fifth but took the team gold along with Rudrankksh and Arjun with a combined score of 1884.7. Kazakhstan won the team silver with a combined score of 1879.4, while Japan won bronze with a score of 1877.2.

In the Junior Men's final, senior and junior national record holder Himanshu Dhillon maintained his lead from the first series till the end to clinch the gold medal. Ansh Dabas started to hit high scores after the second series to gradually move into the second spot, while Naraen Pranav hit three 10.8's towards his final shots to secure the bronze medal, ensuring India cleaned up the podium. Himanshu, Naraen and Abhinav Shaw also ensured India won the team gold with a combined score of 1887.8.

Bhanu Pratap Singh Choudhary added a silver for the hosts in the Youth category, finishing the final with a score of 247.2. Indonesia's Pramudio Mudiono clinched the gold with a score of 248.4 while his teammate Anang Febrian secured the bronze medal. Bhanu Pratap, along with Anshul Batra and Yash Pandey, won India the team gold, while Kazakhstan and the Maldives won the silver and bronze, respectively.

Earlier in the day, Mukesh Nelavalli and Vanshika Chaudhary who were trailing the Indonesian pair of Arista Putri Darmoyo and Muhamad Iqbal Prabowo for most part of the air pistol junior mixed team finals but shot consistently to eventually clinch the gold with a combined score of 481.1, which was in the end 4.2 points ahead of the Indonesians who finished on 476.9 to win the silver medal. Assylym Zhakiya and Tamerlan Yerdembek of Kazakhstan won the bronze medal.

In the youth mixed team finals, Shiksha Saran and Girish Gupta dominated the finals to win gold ahead of Shirinbibi Rajabova and Khaydarali Sattorov of Tajikistan, who won silver and Shakizada Mazova and Matvey Tikhonov of Kazakhstan, who won bronze.

The medals of 10m Air Rifle Women will be decided tomorrow, along with 50m pistol men and junior men.

- ANI