Anish Bhanwala wins silver as India tops Asian Shooting medal tally

Olympian Anish Bhanwala won silver in the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol at the Asian Shooting Championship in Kazakhstan, as India topped the medal tally with 74 medals, including 39 gold

Hyderabad: Olympian Anish Bhanwala secured the silver medal in the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol event at the 16th Asian Shooting Championship in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, on Tuesday as India consolidated their position on top of the medal tally with 74 medals, including 39 gold, 18 silver and 17 bronze.

The 22-year-old Anish, who shot 35 in the finals, was edged out of the gold by China’s Su Lianbofan, who shot 36 and went on to create new World Junior and Asian Championships Junior records.

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Anish, along with Adarsh Singh and Neeraj Kumar, had earlier picked up the team silver with a combined score of 1738. Adarsh also qualified for the finals in second place after scoring 585 in qualification but finished fifth in the finals, while Neeraj shot 570 in qualification.

In the finals, Anish was leading until the end of the fourth series, missing two shots out of the possible 20. Su equalised in the fifth series after hitting a perfect five and Anish missing one. The Chinese shooter maintained a one-point lead, with Anish missing one shot each in the next two series. In the last series, Anish, who shot first, hit a perfect five and maintained pressure on his opponent, but Su held his nerve and hit a perfect five to seal the gold medal.

In the final Olympic event of the championship, the trap mixed team pair of Kynan Darius Chenai and Aashima Ahlawat lost to Kazakhstan’s Alisher Alsalbayev and Aizhan Dosmagambetova 34-38 in the bronze medal match. The pair had earlier qualified for the medal match after surviving a shoot-off against Korea’s Chang Hee Jung and Seonah Cho. The other Indian pair, Lakshay Sheoran and individual champion Neeru Dhanda, finished 9th in qualification with a score of 132.

In Junior Mixed Team Trap, Aryavansh Tyagi and Bhavya Tripathi settled for silver after suffering a narrow 37-38 defeat to Kazakhstan’s Nikita Moisseyev and Eleonora Ibragimova in the gold medal match.

With all the Olympic events now concluded at the championships, the action will shift to non-Olympic events, which began today with India winning two medals — gold in the 50m Pistol Men Junior Team and silver in the senior category.