By Harpal Singh Bedi
Jakarta, Aug (UNI) Teenager Lakshya Sheoran and 31-year-old Deepak Kumar won a silver each in trap and 10m Air Rifle respectively to raise Indian medal tally to four at the Asian Games at Palembang on Monday.
It was in the morning that Deepak won the medal number three for India and in the afternoon Lakshya won the fourth medal for the country. Interestingly three of the four medals have been won by the shooters so far.
However all the three women shooters in fray- Apurvi Chandela, Seema Tomar and Shreyasi Singh flopped.
Veteran trap shooter Manavjit Sandhu once again missed a medal narrowly to finish an agonizing fourth..
It was Manavjit who topped the qualification round with a score of 119 (12 in shoot-off) while Lakshya was fourth with a score of 119 (0 in shoot-off). Though it was tough competition but both Indians made it through to the final from the shoot-off.
Lakshya made a great start to the final as he shot 14 out of his 15 targets in the first round, while Manavjit missed three targets to finish the first set with a score of 11 out of 15.
By the end of 25 shots, both Manavjit and the youngster Lakshya were tied for the second spot with 21 points.
By the end of 30 shots, India were assured of a medal with both Indians staying in contention with just 4 shooters in the fray. Lakshya consolidates his second position while Manavjit stayed in the fourth position.
Thereafter Manavjit lost steam but the youngster held his nerves and finished with 39 from 45 shots to finish with the silver medal.
Taipei's Kunpi Yang won the gold medal while equalling the Games record with 48, while Korea's Daemyeong Ahn bagged bronze after scoring 30 at the JSC Shooting Range.
Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, who had won an Olympic silver medal in Men’s double trap, congratulated the youngster on twitter.
Earlier in the morning Indian challenge in the event received a boost as as Ravi Kumar (626.7) and Deepak Kumar (626.3) finished 4th and 5th respectively in the 10m Rifle event’s qualification round to make the cut for the finals.
In the finals Deepak fired 247.7 points for the silver while China’s Haoran Yang set up an Asian Games record score of 249.1 to top the podium.
Ravi Kumar came fourth with a 205.2 as Chinese Taipei’s Shaochuan Lu (226.8) managed the bronze.
Chinese Taipei's Shaochuan Lu (226.8) bagged the bronze after being beaten by a near-perfect score of 10.9 by Deepak in the third-place shoot-off.
Deepak then shot a 10.8 to get the better of Ravi (205.2). Deepak had won the bronze medal at the 2018 ISSF World Cup in Guadalajara in the 10 metre air rifle mixed team event with Mehuli Ghosh and in the individual category, the 30-year old clinched bronze in the 2017 Commonwealth Championship in Brisbane.
In the women’s section Apurvi Chandela finished fifth with a total of 186.0 in the 10m Air Rifle event. She was in bronze medal position but her last wayward shot led to her elimination.
In women’s trap, Shreyasi Singh failed in the shoot-off and got eliminated. While Seema Tomar who made it to final finishes last after managing a total of only 12.
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