The in-form Jitu Rai's pistol opened the gold medal account for India, while Shweta Chaudhry clinched a bronze as shooters began their campaign on a resounding note on the opening day of the 17th Asian Games here today.
While Jitu struck gold in the 50m event, Shweta's bronze came in the 10m air pistol event at the Ongnyeon Shooting Range here.
Armyman Jitu, 27, showed steely grit to get the better of a strong field, which included two-time Olympic champion Jin Jongoh of South Korea, to snatch the gold off the final shot in a straight duel with Vietnamese rival Nguyen Hoang Phuong.
The Vietnamese, in fact, was leading the Indian ace, who had recently won the gold at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games and a silver at the Granada World Championships going into this competition.
But the Indian clinched the issue on the last shot.
Jitu shot 8.4 after his rival had fumbled with a poor 5.8 to win the gold with an overall tally of 186.2, as compared to Nguyen's 183.4.
The bronze was clinched by China's Wang Zhiwei (165.6). Jitu thus became only the second Indian pistol shooter to clinch an Asian Games title after Jaspal Rana and the fourth shooter overall after shotgun experts Randhir Singh in 1978 and Ronjan Sodhi in 2010.
The Indian later said he badly wanted to win the gold medal in the Asian Games.
"I wanted to win this gold badly and was under a lot of pressure. The competition here was even more than in the Commonwealth Games or the world championship. I am happy that I could fulfill my wish," he said.
However, the Indian men's team finished fourth with his teammates Om Prakash (555) and Onkar Singh (551) ending up 10th and 16th respectively.
Earlier, Shweta, competing with a gun she was not used to as her own gun had been held back by the Korean Customs, secured the bronze medal in the 10m range in air pistol with a total tally of 176.4 behind champion Zhang Mengyuan of China (202.2) and runner-up Jung Jeehae of South Korea (201.3).Shweta's teammates Heena Sidhu (378) and Malaika Goel (373) ended up 13th and 24th respectively while the trio as a team got the fifth spot from among 14 teams.
Shweta defied odds, a travel-weary schedule and absence of her regular weapon to provide India with their first medal.
The 28-year-old had to eliminate a rival through a shoot-off to ensure the bronze in the women's 10M air pistol event.
Having qualified for the eight-strong final list with a total score of 383 even as her more fancied teammate Heena Sidhu got eliminated, Shweta showed exemplary poise to fight her way back.
She managed to stave off early elimination by being the third best after the first eight shots, recovering from sixth position. She had a poor 8.4 when the last four shooters were standing which forced a play-off with China's Guo Wenjun to decide who remains in the competition.
Shweta was leading Guo 138.3 to 137.9 when she became nervous and a poor mark of 8.4 followed to force the shoot-off in which she shot 10.7 while her Chinese rival came up with only 10.0 to be eliminated.
This ensured at least a bronze for Shweta, but by then the leeway she had conceded to the top two was too big to bridge.
A poor first shot of 8.6 pegged her down further even though she scored 10.5 with her last shot, as compared to 10.7 by Zhang and 10.
In the men's pistol event at the 50m range, both Zhiwei and Jongoh got eliminated in the race for the gold leaving only Jitu and unheralded Vietnamese Nguyen fighting for the gold.
It needed the last set of shots to decide the issue in favour of Rai. He shot 8.4 after the nervous Vietnamese was way off the mark to fire a poor 5.8 to win the gold.
He had qualified seventh for the final with a tally of 559. In the edge of the seat thriller that the final proved to be, Jitu had to climb from the lower order to get into the medal round.
When 14 shots were completed only four were left standing for the count: Jitu, Nguyen, his compatriot Hoang Xuan Vien and China's Wang Zhiwei.
This was the time the Indian ace showed his true colours by shooting 9.9 and 10.7 to keep himself in medal contention. Hoang and Zhiwei got successively eliminated by the end of the 16th and 18th shots leaving Jitu to fight for the gold with Nguyen.
Nguyen, in fact, led the Indian by 0.7 points after the 18th shot, but in the last series of two shots, lost his nerves and the chance for the title.
While the Vietnamese came up with scores of 8.7 and a shocking 5.8, a clear case of nerves, the steely-handed Indian brought off a stunning 9.6 and then sealed the gold with an 8.4.
This was his sixth medal on the trot in international competitions this year.