Asian Airgun C’ships: India continues to garner gold

With the addition of four gold medals, India takes its tally to 12 gold, four silver and two bronze medals.

File Photo: Elavenil Valarivan won the 10m air rifle gold among women.

Elavenil Valarivan asserted her class yet again as won the gold in women's air rifle at the 12th Asian Airgun championship in Taoyuan, Chinese Taipei, on Sunday.

The 19-year-old Elavenil — the World Championship junior silver medallist, and two-time junior World Cup gold medallist in 2018 — shot 250.5 in the final to edge out Ying-Shin Lin of Chinese Taipei by 0.3 points. Interestingly, both the shooters shot 9.9 on the 24th and last shot which made Elavenil’s 0.3 point-lead decisive.

Elavenil had shot scores of 631.0, 630.5 and 631.4 in qualification en route to winning those global medals. She had twice shot 249.8 and once 251.7 in the finals while accomplishing her task.

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In partnership with Apurvi Chandela — who had won the Olympic quota in the World Championship last year, apart from the World Cup gold in Delhi this season — and Meghana Sajjanar, Elavenil also helped India to the team gold.

India’s domination continued in men’s air rifle, as Divyansh Singh Panwar shot 249.7 and beat Kim Dajin of Korea by 2.3 points for the gold.

The seasoned Ravi Kumar and Deepak Kumar were unable to reach the individual medals, but together with Divyansh won the team gold with an intimidating 18.4-point lead over South Korea.

With the addition of four gold medals, India took its tally to 12 gold, four silver and two bronze medals.

The junior air rifle events will be held on Monday.

The results 10m air rifle Men: 1. Divyansh Singh Panwar 249.7 (628.2); 2. Kim Dajin (Kor) 247.4 (624.1); 3. Shin Minki (Kor) 225.5 (620.0); 4. Ravi Kumar 204.8 (626.3); 6. Deepak Kumar 164.1 (626.2). Team: 1. India 1880.7; 2. Korea 1862.3; 3. Chinese Taipei 1856.1. Women: 1. Elavenil Valarivan 250.5 (630.0); 2. Lin Ying-Shin (Tpe) 250.2 (624.3); 3. Park Sunmin (Kor) 229.1 (627.88); 4. Apurvi Chandela 207.8 (625.4); 7. Meghana Sajjanar 143.3 (623.2). Team: 1. India 1878.6; 2. Chinese Taipei 1872.5; 3. Korea 1870.7.