Shymkent: Olympian Sift Kaur Samra pulled off an incredible show, clinching the individual women’s 50m rifle 3 positions gold and helping the country to the team title as well in the Asian Shooting Championships here on Tuesday.
The 23-year-old world record holder fired a superb 459.2 in the final to beat China’s Yang Yujie (458.8) for gold, and the trio of Samra, stalwart Anjum Moudgil and Ashi Chouksey also bagged the top podium in the team event with an aggregate of 1753 points.
India are placed second on the charts with 20 medals, nine of them gold. China are leading the table with 24 medals, including 13 gold.
This was Samra’s fourth Asian Championships gold, and she was in a different zone altogether in the event as she qualified for the eight-shooter final placed No.1 with a score of 589.
Another Indian, Shriyanka Sadandi, who had topped the qualification round was not eligible for the final as she was competing for ‘Ranking Points Only’ (RPO). RPO shooters cannot compete for medals.
Indian teenager shooter Anushka Thokur bagged her maiden international medal in style, clinching gold in the junior women’s 50m rifle 3 positions event. She, along with Prachi Gaikwad and Mahit Sandhu, made it a grand double by winning the team gold.
A national championships and Khelo India Youth Games medallist, the 18-year-old Anushka fired a brilliant 460.7 in the final to win by a huge margin of five points. South Korea’s Oh Sehee 455.7 claimed silver, while compatriot Sim Yeojin (443.9) took the bronze. Two other Indians who made it to the eight-shooter final, Sandhu and Gaikwad, finished fifth and sixth respectively.
In the team category, Anushka (583), Gaikwad (588) and Sandhu (587) aggregated 1758 to win gold, while South Korea (1740) and Kazakhstan (1706) took the silver and bronze respectively in a competition where four teams participated.
Sameer from India bagged the junior men’s 25m rapid-fire bronze, notching a score of 21 in the six-shooter fina
The Indian trio of Bhaker, Esha and Simranpreet Kaur Brar won the team bronze with an aggregate score of 1749, finishing behind China and South Korea. Esha topped the women’s 25m pistol
qualifications, finishing ahead of Bhaker and Chinese medallists Xiao and Zhang.