New Delhi: Indian shooters clinched both the top podiums on offer at the Asian Airgun Championship 2022 on Friday to finish the competition in Daegu, South Korea, with 25 gold medals.
On the final day, Rhythm Sangwan and Vijayveer Sidhu won the 10m air pistol mixed team gold medal while Manu Bhaker and Samrat Rana finished top in the corresponding junior shooting competition.
Rhythm and Vijayveer beat Kazakhstan’s Valeriy Rakhimzhan and Irina Yunusmetova 17-3 in the senior mixed team finals. Earlier, they had also topped qualifying with a score of 579 while the Kazakhs came in second with 577.
Shiva Narwal and Yuvika Tomar, the other Indian team in the fray, also made a medal match after finishing fourth in the qualifying round with 572. Up against the Korean team of Bomi Kim and Daemyung Lee, though, the Indian shooting duo fell short by a 16-6 scoreline to finish outside the podium.
In the junior event, Tokyo Olympian and junior world champion Manu Bhaker teamed up with Samrat Rana and the duo shot 578 in qualifying, just one less than toppers Uzbekistan. Facing off against the Uzbek team of Nigina Saidkulova and Mukhammad Kamalov in the final, they emerged victorious by a 17-3 score.
Much like in the senior competition, India’s second pair in the event, Sagar Dangi and Esha Singh, also made one of the two bronze medal matches after finishing third in the qualification with a score of 576.
However, the two failed to get past Korea’s Lee Seungjun and Yang Jiin, who edged out the medal match 16-14.
