Anish Bhanwala wins bronze as Kazakhstan dominate Asian Shooting Championship

Anish Bhanwala won bronze in the men’s 25m rapid-fire pistol as Kazakhstan claimed four golds on day eight of the Asian Shooting Championship. India’s medal tally rose to 41 gold, 19 silver and 15 bronze with two days left

New Delhi: World Championship silver medallist Anish Bhanwala clinched bronze in the men’s 25m rapid-fire pistol competition, even as Kazakhstan dominated day eight of the Asian Shooting Championship with four gold medals here on Wednesday.

This was Anish’s third Asian Championship medal.

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Adriyan Karmakar in the 50m rifle prone junior men’s event and the junior men’s 25m RFP team also won gold on the day, taking India’s table-topping medal tally to 41 gold, 19 silver and 15 bronze, with two more days of competitions left.

Anish and Adarsh Singh took the seventh and eighth qualifying spots with scores of 574 and 573 respectively, ensuring two Indians in the RFP final. Former champion Nikita Chiryukin of Kazakhstan topped the qualifiers with a 582 and led a trio of his mates into the decider.

Japanese Dai Yoshioka, a two-time Olympian and a World Cup gold medallist, and Ha Minh Thanh, a double Asian Games medallist, also went through along with Ha’s teammate Vu Tien Nam.

In the final consisting of eight series of five rapid-fire shots, Yoshioka, Anish and Chiryukin were fastest off the blocks as Vu and Kazakh Artemiy Kabakov became the first two to be eliminated after the third series.

As long-time team-mate Adarsh bowed out after the fourth series with 11 hits to his name, Anish found himself in joint lead with Yoshioka and Nikita after the sixth series with 21 hits.

However, he got two hits in the seventh as the Japanese struck five and Chiryukin four, settling for bronze, the same result he had achieved three years ago at the Changwon Asian Championships.

Yoshioka went on to close with another perfect five to upgrade his Changwon performance by one, finishing on a world and Asian record score of 31. Chiryukin won silver with 28 hits, while Anish ended on 23 hits.

Earlier in the first event of the day, Islam Satpayev, the talented Kazakh rifle shooter who won a bronze at the Paris Olympics in the mixed team event, shone bright on the day winning a couple of gold in the non-Olympic 50m rifle prone men’s competitions.

He won the individual event with a score of 622.5 and the team gold in alliance with teammates Nikita Shakhtorin (622.5, individual silver) and Konstantin Malinovsky (615.0).

India won a bronze through Babu Singh Panwar (621.3) in the individual men’s event and a silver in the team event when Babu combined with Samarvir Singh (618.2) and Sartaj Singh Tiwana (614.4).

In the junior men’s rifle prone, India’s Karmakar won gold with a tally of 621.7 over 60 shots. The Kazakhs took silver and bronze through Oleg Noskov (620.6) and Tamerlan Kabulov (617.3).

Kazakhstan also took the team gold in the event with a tally of 1848.7, which was better than India’s 1847.6.

In the final event of the day, the junior men’s 25m RFP, Indonesia’s Muhamad Fawwaz Aditia Farrel took gold with a score of 29 in the final, which was also a world and Asian junior record.

India’s Suraj Sharma took silver with 23 and Mukesh Nelavalli bronze with a score of 19.

Suraj (582) and Mukesh (572) won gold in the team competition, combining with Sahil Choudhary (575) in the qualification round to post a total of 1729. Team Kazakhstan took silver with a tally of 1613.