NEW DELHI: Former world number one and 2018 World Champion Ankur Mittal scripted history at the 16th Asian Shooting Championship on Friday, clinching the gold medal in Double Trap with a new continental record. His stellar performance also powered India to its best-ever campaign at the championship, taking the country’s medal tally past the 100-mark to a record 103 medals — including 52 gold, 26 silver, and 25 bronze.
Mittal dominated the final with 107 hits across four rounds (26, 28, 26, 27), leaving Kazakhstan’s Artyom Chikulayev (98) with silver and Kuwait’s Ahmad Alaffasi (96+2) with bronze. Alongside Bhanu Pratap Singh and Harshvardhan Kaviya, he also added a team bronze in the Double Trap event.
India’s shooting contingent continued its dominance across categories. In the Double Trap Junior event, Hatim Khan Mohammed won silver with 89 hits while Manavrajsinh Chudasama secured bronze with 87, and together with Vinay Pratap Singh Chandrawat (81), the trio clinched the team gold. In the women’s Double Trap, India produced a podium sweep as Anushka Singh Bhati (93) took gold, Rajkuwar Pranil Ingle (89) silver, and Yeshaya Hafiz Contractor (87) bronze, with the trio also adding the team gold. In the women’s junior category, Avani Alankar Koli won bronze with 77 hits and combined with Krishika Joshi and Smita Sawant to secure team silver.
In rifle events, Manini Kaushik scored 617.8 to win bronze in the 50m Rifle Prone Women’s event, and along with Surabhi Bhardwaj and Vidarsa K. Vinod, picked up the team silver. In the junior section, Prachi Gaikwad won silver with 616.6 and later combined with Anushka Thokur and Tejal Nathawat for the team bronze. In the 25m Centre Fire Pistol Men’s event, Rajkanwar Singh struck gold with 583-22x, and along with Gurpreet Singh and Ankur Goel, also bagged the team gold. The juniors shone brightly in the 25m Pistol event, with Suraj Sharma (588-24x), Abhinav Choudhary (582-20x), and Mukesh Nelavalli (576-21x) sweeping the podium for gold, silver, and bronze, before clinching the team gold as well.
With 103 medals overall, India topped the championship standings, improving its previous tally by 39 medals from the 15th edition in Changwon, South Korea. Host Kazakhstan finished second, while China secured third place in the medals table. This record-breaking haul cements India’s position as a dominant force in Asian shooting and marks a historic milestone for the country’s shooters on the continental stage.
