New Delhi: Indian shooters Aakriti Dahiya and Anjum Moudgil delivered an impressive performance at the Asian Shooting Championship on Tuesday, winning silver and bronze medals in the women’s 50 metre rifle three positions event. The competition, held at the Karni Singh Range, also witnessed Kazakhstan’s Sofiya Shulzhenko creating a new world record on her way to the gold medal.
Shulzhenko finished the 35 shot final with a remarkable score of 358.2, staying four points ahead of Aakriti, who secured second place. Anjum, an experienced international campaigner and former world championship medallist, claimed the bronze with 340.4 points. The Kazakh shooter’s effort also earned her additional world junior, Asian and Asian junior records.
India enjoyed further success in the junior category. Prachi Gaikwad clinched gold in the junior women’s 3P final with a score of 353.3. Fourteen year old Tomiris Amanova of Kazakhstan took silver, while India’s Anushka Thokur added another bronze with 341.1. The trio of Prachi, Anushka and Hazel later combined to win team gold with a total of 1748 points, comfortably ahead of Kazakhstan.
In the senior team event, however, the Kazakh shooters edged past India to take the top position with an aggregate of 1760, four points more than the Indian total. Earlier in qualification, Arina Malinovskaya of Kazakhstan topped the field with 588, while Anjum finished second with 587 and Ashi Chouksey placed fourth with 586. Aakriti qualified sixth.
During the final, the Indian shooters dominated the opening kneeling stage with Aakriti leading the field. Shulzhenko made a strong comeback in the prone position and later produced outstanding scores in the standing series to pull away decisively from the rest.
In the men’s 25 metre rapid fire pistol event, India’s Adarsh Singh emerged as the early leader after the precision round with 291 out of 300. Anish Bhanwala remained in contention with 287, while Neeraj Kumar will need a strong second round to reach the final.
With these results, India’s overall medal count at the championship rose to 39 gold, 15 silver and 12 bronze, keeping the country comfortably at the top of the standings.
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