By Harpal Singh Bedi
Jakarta, Aug 22 (UNI) Amid nerve wrecking tension Rahi Sarnobat kept her cool to rewrite history by becoming the first Indian woman to win a shooting gold at the Asian Games at Palembang on Wednesday.
In an edge of the seat 25m pistol event final, the 27-year-old Maharashtra shooter Sarnobat shot a score of 34 in the final to tie with Thailand's Naphaswan Yangpaiboon who won a silver after a shoot-off. South Korea's Kim Minjung who won bronze with a score of 29.

“It is incredible” said a visibly excited shooter. ”The feeling that I am the first Indian woman shooter to win a gold at the Asian Games is yet to sink in.”

Title-favourite Manu Bhaker ended disappointing sixth after scoring 16 in the final. She had qualified for the final after shooting an Asian Games record score of 593 in the qualification round.
Interestingly, Bhaker's score would have been good enough to top the qualification round at any Olympics till date. Sarnobat finished seventh with a score of 580.

Bhaker will get one more chance to claim the yellow medal as she will take part in the 10m air pistol event. She had failed to make the final of the 10m pistol mixed team event with Abhishek Verma on Sunday.
With this win, Sarnobat gave India its second shooting gold medal at these Asian Games after Saurabh Chaudhary bagged gold in the 10m air pistol event on Tuesday.
Sarnobat displayed awesome form in the final as she led from start till the end of 40 shots in the final.
The final was not for the faint hearted. It had all the twist and turns to keep the hall filled with suspense till the end.
And ending was indeed dramatic as Sarnobat and Yangpaiboon managed to score four in the first series of the shoot-off which necessitated a second series of five shots.

The Indian hit the target on three of those five shots whereas Yangpaiboon only managed to hit two as Sarnobat won the shoot-off by one point with a score of 3-2. Both Sarnobat and Yangpaiboon set a new Asian Games record in the final.
Earlier fancied Anjum Moudgil and Gaayathri Nithyanandam failed to qualify for the finals in the 50m Rifle 3 Positions.

Anjum 24 finished ninth with 1159 points while Gaayathri 25 was 17th with 1148 points during the qualification round.
Commonwealth Games 2018 silver medallist Anjum missed the qualification by a point. She got 392 (97-98-99-98) in kneeling 394 (98-100-99-97) in prone and 373 (93-92-93-95) in standing positions.
Gaayathri shot 383 (97-97-95-94) in kneeling 393 (97-99-97-100) in prone and 372 (95-93-93-91) in standing positions Gankhuyag and Nandinzaya of Mogolia topped the qualification with a Games record score of 1175.
Her compatriot Chuluunbadrakh Narantuya was second with 1173 points. Singapore s Jasmine Ser Wei Xiang was third with 1 171 points.
UNI HSB NC1544