Indian shooters continued their medal winning run at Asian Shooting Championships in Shymkent, Kazakhstan as Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar dominated the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions competition to win the gold medal on Sunday. China’s Wenyu Zhao won the silver medal with 462 points, while Japan’s Naoya Okada claimed bronze with a score of 445.8.
Alongside Aishwary, Adriyan Karmakar set the Asian record in the junior event claiming gold medal with a score of 463.8 in the final.
Aishwary with hattrick
This is third consecutive medal for Aishwary at the Asian Championships as he won gold in 2023 and silver in 2024 losing to compatriot Akhil Sheoran. Other Indians in the fray, Chain Singh and Akhil Sheoran finished fourth and fifth respectively.
Aishwary started well in the kneeling position and while he couldn’t replicate that in prone, he did enough in the standing round to emerge winner. He took a healthy lead in the first five shots and then kept going consistently to beat Zhao by 0.5 points.
Earlier, the Indian trio of Aishwary, Chain Singh and Sheoran bagged silver medal in the 50 metre rifle 3 positions team event.
Aishwary was placed third in the qualification with a total of 584.
In the qualifications, the seasoned Chain Singh was fifth in the pecking order with an effort of 582 while world championship bronze medallist Sheoran rallied brilliantly to clinch the seventh qualifying spot with a 581.China also saw all three of their shooters qualify with the other two spots going to Japan and Korea respectively. The team gold eluded India by three points as their tally of 1747 fell three short of the Chinese total.
Meanwhile, double Olympic medallist Manu Bhaker, who won bronze medals in both the women’s 10m air pistol individual and team events earlier this week, was fourth in the women’s 25m pistol qualification round after the precision stage.
Esha Singh was second.
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Adriyan creates record in Junior
The final of the junior men’s 50m 3 Positions rifle saw better scores as Adriyan shot 463.8 to clinch his first-ever Asian title with a continental record. He started strongest in the eight-shooter final taking a lead of 0.9 over China’s Han Yinan after 15 shots of the kneeling position.
Another Indian in the fray, Vedant Waghmare won the bronze medal with a score of 448.8. The Indian occupied the 1-2 position but a late surge by Han saw him displace Vedant for silver over the last five shots, but Adriyan was not to be deterred as he shot scores of 10.8, 10.2,10.4,10.5 and 10.5 for a first junior continental title.
