Avani Lekhara became the first Indian woman to win a Paralympic gold medal after she equalled the world record with a score of 249.6 in the women's 10m air rifle standing finals (SH 1) at Tokyo Paralympics on Monday.
China's Zhang Cuiping clinched the silver with a total score of 248.9, while Iryna Shchetnik of Ukraine won the bronze scoring 227.5.
Avani qualified for the final finishing seventh in the qualification round with a total score of 621.7. In the finals, she showed her mettle, scoring 10 and above with all but four shots.
"I can't describe this feeling, I'm feeling like I'm on top of the world. It's unexplainable," Lekhara said after the final.
"I'm so happy I could be the one to contribute it. Hopefully there's a lot of medals more to come. I was just saying one thing, that I have to take one shot at a time. There's nothing else that matters now, just take one shot at a time and just finish it.
"I just think that I have to follow the process. Beyond that, I try not to think about the score or the medal tally."
Meanwhile, Swaroop Mahavir Unhalkar narrowly missed out on a medal, finishing fourth in the men's 10m air rifle standing SH1 event with a score of 203.9 in the final. Deepak Saini failed to qualify for the final after finishing 20th in the qualification round.
India has won six medals at the Games so far. Yogesh Kathuniya won silver in the men's discus throw F56 event. Bhavinaben Patel and Nishad Kumar have won a silver each in women's singles table tennis class 4 and men's T47 high jump events respectively. Devendra Jhajharia won silver in the men's F46 javelin throw event with a personal best effort of 64.35m. Two-time reigning world champion Sundar Singh Gurjar won bronze with a throw of 64.01m.
Vinod Kumar's bronze medal in men's discus throw F52 will not stand. He is designated as "Classification not Completed" and results of the competition are void.
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