Nagoya, Sep 25 (PTII) Suruchi Singh and Kamaljeet held their nerves in the 10m air pistol mixed team final to deliver India’s first shooting gold of the ongoing Asian Games, lifting the contingent’s morale with a record-breaking performance here on Friday.
Adding to the joy was a silver from the men’s 50m rifle 3-position team, though that medal carried a sense of what might have been as the trio of Aishwary Pratap Singh, Rudrankksh Patil and Niraj Kumar had led China for a substantial part of the competition before finishing second.
Aishwary and Niraj then could not carry the momentum into the individual final, leaving India with a gold and silver from a day that offered both relief and frustration to the squad that has been battling one disappointment after another since landing.
For 20-year-old Suruchi, the top finish was a redemption of sorts after the disappointment of the women’s 10m air pistol competition, where she had watched the Indian team finish empty-handed alongside Manu Bhaker and Esha Singh. She had missed an individual medal.
The youngster from Jhajjar in Haryana, the same district that produced double Olympic medallist Bhaker, returned to the range with a simple objective — put the disappointment behind her and shoot for gold.
She did exactly that.
With five World Cup and one World Cup Final gold medals already to her name, Suruchi brought an almost carefree temperament to the pressure of an Asian Games final.
Ranked No. 3 in the world, she produced the kind of controlled shooting that allowed India to build a commanding lead and never let it slip.
Paired with Kamaljeet, a late replacement for Kedarling Uchaganve, Suruchi helped India dominate the four-team final from the opening series. The Indian pair combined for 484.6, a Games and Asian record, with Suruchi contributing 245.7 and Kamaljeet 238.9.
South Korea finished a distant second with 478.0, 6.6 points adrift, while Iran took bronze with 415.8.
“I came to the range today with the only aim of winning the gold after the disappointment of missing an individual medal in the women’s 10m air pistol and the team medal along with Manu Bhaker and Esha Singh. I am happy that I am the one who has brought India its first medal at the shooting range,” said Suruchi.
The gold had been set up in qualification, where Suruchi and Kamaljeet were relentless across all three series. They shot 196, 195 and 196 for a combined 587, setting a Games qualifying record and equalling the Asian Games record.
That gave them pole position going into the medal round, but qualification only establishes the starting point in shooting. The final demands a different kind of control, with every shot carrying greater weight and every small lapse capable of changing the leaderboard.
The Indians had no such wobble this time. They led from start to finish, Suruchi providing the stability while Kamaljeet, despite some inconsistency, staying sufficiently composed to keep the pair ahead and finally end India’s long wait for gold.
Rifle team settles for silver after leading
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The men’s 50m rifle 3-position team had a very different experience. Aishwary Pratap Singh, Rudrankksh Patil and Niraj Kumar had looked on course for gold for much of the competition, only for China to finish strongly and deny them the top step.
India finished with an aggregate of 1762, four points behind China’s 1766.
In the rifle team event, the qualification scores of the three shooters determine the team aggregate and, consequently, the medal positions. Aishwary led the Indian effort with 589, while Niraj shot 588 and former 10m air rifle world champion Rudrankksh shot 585 to take India to 1762.
The qualification scores also put Aishwary and Niraj into the individual final, in third and fourth positions respectively. Rudrankksh, on 585, finished ninth and missed the eight-shooter final.
The individual medal round, however, proved a different proposition altogether.
Niraj was the first Indian to bow out, finishing eighth after failing to find consistency through the kneeling, prone and standing positions.
Aishwary, the world No. 7 and a shooter with a reputation for producing under pressure, was expected to mount a challenge.
The 25-year-old from Khargone in Madhya Pradesh, who took up shooting after finding little interest in academics, had the pedigree to do so.
He had won a world championship silver in Cairo last year and had also collected team gold and individual silver at the previous Asian Games in Hangzhou in 2023.
But Friday was not his day. His sighters in practice were crisp, yet the competition shots did not carry the same authority. Aishwary struggled to find his rhythm and was the fourth shooter eliminated, bowing out on the 32nd shot of the 35-shot final.
The contrast was stark. The shooter who had helped India to team silver could not reproduce that precision when the individual medals came into play.
At the top, China underlined its strength in the discipline. Liu Yukun, the reigning Olympic champion and current world champion, won gold with a Games-record 460.5, while compatriot Zhang Changhong, the 2020 Olympic champion, took silver with 460.2.
Kazakhstans Islam Satpayev claimed bronze with 448.3.
(PTI News)
