Shymkent: Young pistol marksman Rajkanwar Singh Sandhu gave himself a belated birthday present by winning the 25m centre fire event, while former world champion Ankur Mittal netted the double trap gold as India made merry in non-Olympic disciplines at the Asian Shooting Championships, here on Friday.
India also made a clean sweep in women’s double trap with Anushka Bhati (93), Pranil Ingle (89) and Hafiz Contractor (87) finishing on the podium. The trio also cornered the team gold with an aggregate of 269.
Sandhu, who turned 23 on August 13, beat back the challenge from veteran country-mate Gurpreet Singh, a Korean and an Iranian shooter to win the biggest medal of his career with a score of 583 (Precision 289, Rapid 294).
This was Sandhu’s first senior medal at the international level after winning a bronze and a silver in the junior world cup in 2018 and 2022 respectively.
Army stalwart Gurpreet Singh (579) finished fourth, while South Korea’s Jaekyoon Lee (580) and Iran’s Javad Foroughi (579) took silver and bronze respectively.
India also won the team gold in the event with Gurpreet coming up with a commanding performance for the second day in a row.
The 37-year-old Army shooter, along with Sandhu and Ankur Goel, secured another big win in centre fire with an aggregate score of 1733 points.
One of India’s best double-trap exponents Ankur Mittal won gold with a score of 107 with the silver and bronze going to Kazakhstan’s Artyom Chikulayev (98) and Ahmad Alaffasi (96) respectively.
Young shooter Manini Kaushik clinched her maiden individual international medal, bagging a bronze in women’s 50m rifle prone event after guiding the team to silver earlier in the day.