Shooters Nancy, Elavenil win air rifle gold, silver

Budding shooter Nancy and Olympian Elavenil Valarivan came up with a grand performance in women’s 10m air rifle, clinching gold and silver respectively at the Asia Olympic Qualifiers here on Wednesday.

Teenager Nancy, the junior world team champion, shot a superb 252.8 in the final field of eight to clinch the top spot.

Compatriot Elavenil was unlucky to miss the gold by a fraction of a point, aggregating 252.7. India narrowly missed a clean sweep in the women’s 10m air rifle final after Mehuli Ghosh finished fourth with 210 points, behind China’s Shen Yufan. The trio also won the team gold by a distance over Singapore.

Earlier in men’s 10m air rifle event, Rudrankksh Patil had clinched bronze in the individual event, with Arjun Babuta finishing sixth in the final. The duo also won the team bronze along with Sri Karthik Sabari Raj Ravishankar.

India’s world champion marksman Rudrankksh settled for bronze medal after shooting 228.7 in the final, which was won by Ma Sihan of China (251.4), while Korea’s Daehan Choe bagged silver. Rudrankksh had qualified for the eight-shooter final placed third with a score of 630.4, while Babuta (629.6) was fourth going into the medal round. Nancy was consistent throughout the final, not having a single below-par score, while Elavenil was unlucky to score a 9.7 in her 10th shot in the final, which finally decided her fate.

Nancy, who first shot into international prominence with a silver at the Baku World Cup last year, shot no less than 10.1 to win her first senior international individual gold. She was in second place, 0.2 behind Elavenil, after the first five-shot series where both posted impressive scores of 53.2 and 53.4 respectively.