In a highly anticipated face off between Indian shooter and gold medalist champion of 2008 Beijing Olympics Abhinav Bindra and country-mate Gagan Narang it was Bindra who came out with flying colors and maintained his superb form to clinch the gold medal in the men’s 10m Air Rifle event of the Asian Air Gun Championships here on Sunday whereas Chain Singh had a disappointing show and missed out on podium finishing sixth. Gagan Narang finished fourth.
The Olympic gold medallist shot 208.8 points which was impressively close to the world record of 210.5 points to clinch the gold medal among 22-other competitors from different countries. Yurkov Yuriy (206.6) of Kazakhstan finished second and Korea’s Yu Jaechul (185.3) grabbed the bronze medal.
Narang got off to a flying start with shooting 10.6 and 10.6 in the early rounds but couldn’t maintain his form which was easily visible in his next few attempts. Narang who was crowd’s favourite to win the event after grabbing bronze in the same event at the 2012 london Olympics only managed to score 164.5 points and Chain Singh finished with 122.7 points.
All the three shooters have already secured quota places for next year’s Olympics to be held in Rio de Janeiro.
India also won gold and silver in the youth section while the junior boys bagged two silver medals. Satyajeet Kandhol won the gold medal in the 10m air rifle youth category after he shot 204.8 to pip Chinese Taipei’s Shao-Chuan lu (203.7) for the top spot. Iran’s Daavoud Abadi Abbasali (183.8) came third.
The Indian trio of Kandhol, Mithlesh and Gajendra Raj finished with the silver medal in team event after aggregating 1827.7, while Korea won the gold.
In the junior section, Pratik Borse bagged the silver medal by shooting 203.9 points behind Mohammad Hossein Karimi (205.4) of Iran.
Korea’s Changhee Han managed the bronze in this section with 183.2. Borse teamed up with Prashant and Akhil Sheoran to win the silver in junior team event. They aggregated 1856.4 points to finish second behind Iran and ahead of third-placed Korea.
India won the gold medal in the 10m air rifle team event too with Bindra, Narang and Chain Singh shooting a total of 1868.6. The Korean team of Kim Dajin, Yu Jaechul and Chain Singh (1859.1) finished second and Saudi Arabia’s Mesfer Abound Alammari, Faiz Anazi Ali and Mubarak Mesfer Aldawsari (1824.8) took the third spot.
Other top international shooters participating include Yu Jaechul and Hye Jin lee of Korea, Rashid Yunumetsov and Yuriy Yurkov of Kazakhstan, Najmeh Khidmati, Narje Emamgholi and Hossein Bagheri of Iran, SER Xiang Wei Jasmine of Singapore and the 15-year old talent from Tajikistan, Malika lagutenko.
The September 27-30 event precedes the Asian Shooting Championship at Kuwait in November — the last event for shooters from the continent to win quota places before the quadrennial sporting extravaganza begins in less than a year from now.
Apurvi Chandela will be seen in action in the women’s 10m air rifle event on Monday. The Commonwealth medallist has also booked her place at the Rio Olympics.
This is the first international shooting competition to be held in India after a gap of almost five years, the last being the Delhi Commonwealth Games in 2010.